If you’re a registered UK voter and—at this eleventh hour—you are still undecided, Quartz has assembled a guide to the guides to help you choose who to vote for, helpfully arranged by your self-diagnosed knowledge level.
If you’re surprised to hear Tony Blair is no longer in power
The “idiot’s guide“ from The Metro covers the basic ground, from “What is a general election?” to “What happens if there is a hung parliament?” As it points out:
The general election is a good time to make sure you’re clued up on your politics. After all, one of these party leaders is going to be running your country for the next five years.
If you need help telling your radical socialists from your uber capitalists
If the crowded field of parties is confusing you, the Telegraph offers a pithy summary of what the major parties are promising to do on different policy fronts if just one of them manages to secure a majority (highly unlikely). It covers the top priorities for the economy, immigration, welfare and the National Health Service, taxation, defense, education, and the environment.
Who’s that guy shaking hands and handing out leaflets at the local supermarket?
OK, so you’ve got a grip on the various parties’ agenda, but what about the candidates in your constituency? To find out what names will be on your ballot, insert your post code into this nifty tool developed by the Daily Mirror.
The tool tells you who your seat’s current MP is, the confirmed candidates standing to challenge or replace them, and what kind of swing would be needed for another party to win. You’ll also find helpful facts about the things that matter to you—the economy, cost of living and immigration where you live compared to the rest of the country.
From there, you can find out more about the candidates from the major parties on these links, which each take you to the hard-to-find candidate-search pages: Green Party, Conservatives, Labour Party, UK Independence Party and Scottish National Party
There may be some candidates from smaller national parties or regional parties. You can use this list to find their respective websites and search for your local candidates there.
For next-level voting ninjas only
If you find yourself indifferent between some of the parties but with strong feelings against another, The Independent has a guide to how best to leverage your vote:
Welcome to tactical voting, a necessary evil of the current first-past-the-post system, where voters vote against what they do not want rather than in favour of what they do. But to do this effectively, you need to know where such voting could make a difference.
Of course, you can’t do this in every seat: It really only works in marginal constituencies where the outcome is unclear. To find out whether tactical voting will work in your constituency, use this BuzzFeed tool.