May 07--REPORTING FROM LONDON -- After a voluble and often blistering campaign, British voters are going to the polls Thursday to cast their votes in one of the closest elections in recent memory.
The two leading parties, Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives and Ed Miliband's Labor, have been running neck-and-neck in the polls, with other groups such as Nicola Sturgeon's Scottish National Party, Nigel Farage's UK Independence Party and Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats considered X-factors.
That has given voters a particular sense of uncertainty.
"This is the first time in 50 years my friends and I all looked at each other and said, 'We don't know who to vote for,'" said a woman who asked to be identified as Mary as she exited a polling place in a Labor-held district in Central London. "But I think that's more about confusion among the parties than the voters."
Rhetoric has flown between the candidates on political issues -- Cameron, for instance, has said Labor will be held hostage by the separatist-minded SNP in a coalition scenario, while Miliband has taken Cameron to task regarding the prime minister's plan for a referendum on Britain's membership in the European Union.
Economic concerns have also figured into the campaign. Miliband has positioned himself as a candidate of the middle and working class, even among charges from SNP supporters that the group had abandoned its blue-collar roots.
The Labor leader's line of thinking resonated with some voters.
"I've voted for somebody I hope will make a difference," said Claudine Thomas, 43. She voted for the Labor candidate in her south London constituency of Streatham because, she said, "I'd like to see somebody making changes that make sense for people like myself -- I'm not rich, I'm not massively poor, I'm somewhere in between."
Cameron, however, has said that relatively low unemployment meant his leadership had served working people, an argument that landed with Sheila Burns, who voted Conservative.
"I think perhaps [Cameron] needs another five years to sort us out," said Burns, a retiree. "He hasn't done that bad and I think he's trying hard now to do what he set out to do ... I just think, give him another try."
The leaders cast ballots as well. Miliband, representing his party's colors with a vibrant red tie, voted at about 8 a.m. in his home constituency of Doncaster, a city in the middle of England.
Cameron, wearing a blue shirt for the Conservatives and no tie, cast his vote a little while later in a village hall in his constituency of Witney, just outside Oxford.
The polling stations, which will stay open until 10 p.m., opened at 7 a.m., and lines formed even earlier in some parts of the country as people waited to put their X on the official form (voting in Britain is generally done with pencil and paper).
Polling stations are located in an array of venues including schools, churches, village halls, pubs, a boxing club and, in a town in East Yorkshire, even one family's living room. (They volunteered their space to spare a local parish the expense of renting a mobile voting unit.)
The election has been a hugely popular subject of conversation in Britain in recent weeks, and about 50 of the country's approximately 65 million people registered to vote.
Still, it remained unclear how much impact the day's events will have. In one sense, the import of the elections has been hammered into voters -- newspapers on Thursday made declarations like "Judgment Day" and touted this as a "once in a generation" election.
And yet it's unlikely a lot more will be known when votes are tallied than was apparent before they were cast.
Since neither Labor nor the Tories are expected to win a majority of seats, the government will almost certainly be formed as a result of backroom dealings. Miliband and Cameron will scramble to form coalitions, with parties like the SNP and Liberal Democrats seen as kingmakers. If neither party can reach the required 326 parliamentary seats, further drama could ensue, even potentially involving the queen in the process.
With the prospect of a grueling campaign continuing, voters were trying to take a deep breath. As she stood outside a polling place near the Bloomsbury section of London, a woman who gave her name only as Lisa said, "It has been relentless," then added, "But really, I'm glad it's only six weeks of campaigning instead of the two years you have in the States."
Boyle is a special correspondent.
