The last day you have to register to vote is 20 April - so you need to get your forms in the post today. Visit the electoral commission website here to fill out your details and print off the form which then needs to be sent to Cardiff Council - this is important if you've changed addresses. On the website you can also download a form to register for a postal vote or to vote by proxy. Cardiff Council have more info about how to qualify to register for the election.
Polling day will take place on 6 May from 7am-10pm with 71 stations in Cardiff South and Penarth, 29 in Cardiff West, 53 in Cardiff North and 47 in Cardiff Central – we'll be releasing the exact locations of the polling stations on the blog soon. After the polls have closed, votes for all constituencies will be counted at Sophia Gardens (where I'll be camping up with other members of the media).
Results will be declared as soon as they can on the Thursday or Friday 7 April. After this date the electoral commission will also collect all the parties election expenses spent on the campaigns.
There will also be three televised debates leading up to the election – the first was last night on ITV1. The guardian have teamed up with 38 degrees to offer a chance to ask questions to the manifesto writers- Danny Alexander from the Lib Dems, Ed Miliband from Labour, and Oliver Letwin from the Conservatives. Read more about it and pose your own question here.
The Cardiff candidates
You can click on your constituency page here to find out who your local MP and candidates vying for the seat are.
There's also this post for a disgest of the battle fields in this election in Cardiff.
Read our interviews with the current Cardiff MPs here and this post on the election material being distributed across the city.
Did you know?
This is the first UK election where candidates can stand as young as 18 years of age – the age was reduced from 21 to 18 in 2006.
According to the Office for National Statistics, there were 44,260,051 Parliamentary electors registered to vote in Great Britain as at 1 December 2009. This is a rise of 200,585 (0.5%) on the previous year.
Parties get free postage (not printage) on election material - but the leaflets must name the printers.
Turnout at the 2005 UK Parliamentary general election was 61.4% (62.6% in Wales) of registered electors, higher than the 2001 turnout of 59.4%, but historically low.
