Election Day evening 7 to 9pm
IPSOS/MORI offices, London, 7pm
Bob: OK Chris, how is it going?
Chris: Well, samples have been pretty much completed from the socio-economic series, we are just taking the last hour of the time-series. But I'm concerned about the balance
Bob: You want to activate Option B?
Chris: Well, I thought about that, but it's just taking another hour of timeseries according to the cross-group sample slice and I don't think that's the problem
Bob: What's the problem, high turnout, we should scale for that
Chris: The problem is that we are polling the last election, yes, turnout is up, but the age slice isn't the same
Bob: OK, you'll have to explain that one
Chris: Well, we can't tell yet, because it's all still happening, but I'm thinking that turnout is looking at low 70's, that's over 10% up on last time. Now some of that is general, but from the BES data we are also collecting, it looks like significant increases in turnout for older DE voters and significant increases with AB young voters, C1C2 young voters and students, whilst 35-55 C1C2 is barely moving from last time.
Bob: Hmm, the older we can cope with, but we will be seriously undersample the young voter - are they out of kilter?
Chris: Yes, the older voters show a small skew from the adjusted median away from Labour and towards the others. The younger voters are massively skewed from "Not Voting" to LibDem and they are voting now, the oldies have gone quiet
Bob: So using Plan B won't help
Chris: No, it will just skew things further, we'll probably find it difficult to find pensioner voters and oversample the middle aged groups again
Bob: Hmm, I'll ring NOP and then tell the BBC they will have results at 8:50 not 8:20. Get thinking about how to credibly adjust the figures, if we can.
Sky News
Announcer: Well, we have some more extraordinary scenes from this election. It's just gone 7:30, up and down the country, polling stations are busy with voters on the after work rush. However, tonight, all over the country there are significant queues at polling stations.
Here's a scene from Birmingham Edgbaston, where over 400 people are queued up waiting to vote, many of them students from the University.
Here's what's happening in Holborn and St Pancras, where there are 300 people in a queue.
Similar scenes can be seen in many other urban and student seats up and down the country. So over to Annette to tell us what's been happening
Well, Andrew, some people have called this the debate election, others have called it the Twitter election, especially since last week. However, today is Facebook day. Many people have organised themselves via Facebook to go and vote with there friends to start an evening off. This idea started a couple of days ago and has been spreading. As we can see from these scenes in Derby, some of the young people have brought the party with them
Thanks, Annette, with such large queues as this, will all these people get to vote before 10pm.
I was talking to the Electoral Commission about this earlier and combined with earlier reported problems at some polling stations they are considering taking court action to ensure everyone in the queue at 10pm gets to vote as in the United States
Wow, that certainly would be something, are people set up for this?
Well, in most of the country, despite the higher turnout, it wouldn't be an issue, but it some areas, it could well be. We shall have to see what happens on that front.
Thanks, Annette, and now over to the brewery which has run an opinion poll using different beers.
Phone Call, just after 8pm
GB: Ah, Nick, finally got hold of you. I need to run some ideas past you about the plan for tomorrow.
NB: Well, it's not a good time, Gordon, we are in the middle of polling day.
GB: Oh, nonsense what could go wrong in Newcastle.
NB: Well, Gordon, it's more a question of what could go right. It's not been a good day.
GB: Well, polling day is exhausting. Anyway, I understand there's a chance we may not have a majority, so I've been having a thought about what we could offer Clegg to get on board. Not too much of course, maybe a royal commission on PR and a few minor posts, something at Secretary of State left for him of course.
NB: But, Gordon ...
GB: Well, yes, I know it's a bit high-level for him, but it will be worth making a few small concessions to be able to deliver a full programme of social justice and growth for another four years.
NB: Gordon, I must
GB: No, Nick, Nick, I understand, you are bored of being Chief Whip, but I need your talents there for a few months yet. It will be a difficult reshuffle.
NB: Gordon, I need to get back to it, we are in danger of losing here.
GB: Nick, your dedication to the party is always of the best, but I really think that discussing the group to handle the discussions with the Liberals is more important than trying to save some tyro in Newcastle North.
NB: Prime Minster, I'm not trying to save Catherine, she's a goner, I'm not even trying to save myself, I've gathered together everyone in Newcastle to try and save Central. David sending 30 people over, I'm even having to ask the Sunderland seats to help.
GB: Save Central, that's impossible, you'll be telling me next you are in trouble.
NB: No, Gordon, I'm not in trouble, I've lost, I'm trying to save one seat for us in this city. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to see what I can do to salvage this one against a small horde of Liberals, then I'll go to the count and then I'm going to get horribly drunk.
*Click*
The NEC Arena, Birmingham
The Deputy Returning Officer was a very worried man. Big elections in Birmingham had a nasty habit of going wrong and his application for a better post was up next month. There had already been a number of issues over the issue of poll cards, the updating of the live register and a number of troublesome complaints about the behaviour of polling workers - some of which were undoubtedly correct.
Now, his problem was the postal votes. Not in the hideous 2004 way, which had cost the last-but-one returning officer his job, nor in the 2006 way with bundles of votes being left in the elections office uncounted which had cost the previous incumbent his job, but in yet another wrinkle.
Over there were about 46,000 postal votes, all of which had been run through the verification machines. Sadly, the machines had rejected a rather high percentage of them, much higher than was expected even after the Sparkbrook problem of the previous year. A forlorn looking stack of over 12,000 votes needed manual verification and it was already 8:20pm.
He'd promised the Leader of the Council and the Chief Exec an orderly count, with everything proceeding to plan and the Second City getting a prime place before the cameras, he couldn't beat Sunderland, but he could get to be one of the first marginals to declare and Edgbaston was a classic bell-wether.
The high turnout would lengthen that, but if that was true of all seats, then he could still have his place in the sun. The problem was the postals, they would have to be manually verified before the counting stage could start and the machine rejections could take an age, especially if the party representatives were present quibbling over each vote.
If he were to make the targets, then he would have to start the machine rejections now and the postal count at precisely 10. If there were no representatives here, then so be it. The only real worry would be Hall Green, over 2,000 rejections there in a tight three way race.
An election court would be the end of his career, but so would a late count. Insh'allah, there would be no problems, he decided to start the manual verifications.
Cowley Street, 8:55pm
Mark Pack's email pinged, he'd been on edge waiting for the final exit poll leak for the last fifty minutes. He hadn't enjoyed the roller-coaster ride of the election, but the signs over the last few days had been better, the reports from the constituencies today, had even allowing for candidatitis, been very favourable. However, he needed confirmation.
There it was, straight from a source at NOP.
Con 33.1, LDm 29.4, Lab 26.7
He grinned, good enough for a hung parliament, maybe even for 95 seats.
He then read the accompanying short note about the sampling and he realised that the roller-coaster was still going up and down. He pulled up some spreadsheets and started to write a briefing note for Nick.