Preston will go to the polls on May 6th 2010 and the city has three constituencies in play.

The main one for most of the city is Preston but northern suburbs such as Fulwood come under the constituency of Wyre & Preston North. To the west of the city fall there is the Fylde constituency. To the south of the city the nearby South Ribble and to the east Ribble Valley will also go to the ballot box.

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The constituencies and their candidates:

Preston

Mark Hendrick (Labour)

Nerissa Warner-O’Neill (Conservative)

Mark Jewell (Liberal Democrat)

Richard Muirhead (UKIP)

Mark Hendrick is standing again. In the 2005 election he had a majority of 8,338. In the investigation into MPs expenses he was ordered to pay back £6,885.70

Wyre & Preston North

Ben Wallace (Conservative)

Danny Gallagher (Liberal Democrats)

Nigel Cecil (UKIP)

Cat Smith (Labour)

This is a newly created constituency after being formed after a boundary review where the Lancaster & Wyre seat was scrapped to become Lancaster & Fleetwood. Ben Wallace had a majority of 12,082 in the Lancaster & Wyre seat. In the investigation into MPs expenses he was ordered to pay back £1,079.99

Fylde

Mark Menzies (Conservative)

Liam Robinson (Labour)

William Winlow (Liberal Democrats)

The previous MP Michael Jack is standing down after serving the constituency for 27 years.

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South Ribble

David Borrow (Labour)

Lorraine Fullbrook (Conservative)

Peter Fisher (Liberal Democrats)

David Duxbury (UKIP)

Rosalind Gauci (British National Party)

David Borrow is standing again. In the 2005 election he had a majority of 2,528. In the investigation into MPs expenses he was not ordered to pay back anything.

Ribble Valley

Nigel Evans (Conservative)

Paul Foster (Labour)

Allan Knox (Liberal Democrats)

Steve Rush (UKIP)

Nigel Evans is standing again. In the 2005 general election he had a majority of 6,953. In the investigation into MPs expenses he was ordered to pay back £858.33

Election resources

To register to vote on May 6th you need to be on the electoral register. To get on this you need to contact your local authority, for Preston and Wyre & Preston North it’s Preston City Council, for South Ribble it’s South Ribble Borough Council and for Ribble Valley it’s Ribble Valley Borough Council

You can view constituency profiles on the BBC and Sky websites, which have dedicated election sections. The Lancashire Evening Post has a section of its site for the general election.

The web has some great websites to do with the election, and there’s ones you can get involved in to help monitor the election.

The Straight Choice monitors election leaflets. You’ve no doubt been getting them through your letterbox, complete with dodgy bar graphs, claims of amazing community achievements and the positive spin of ‘So and so can’t win here….’. Take a photo of them and pop them online.

YourNextMP is a site that logs information about candidates in the election and helps keep tabs on everyone who is standing to be an MP. You can join in and add information about all the names who will appear on your local ballot.

Election Champion logs all the election billboards that pop up across the UK. If you’ve seen them in Preston you can log them on the site and it will be interesting to see what kind of messages the political parties are targeting at this area.

Democray Club is an ambitious project that aims to focus more on the issues rather than the candidates. It is run for volunteers, so you can sign up and help set the agenda in your area.

Voter Power Index is a nifty little site that uses loads of data to work out how much your vote is statisically worth. A bit of fun, don’t read into the figures too much.

Blog Preston has interviews with the candidates for the Preston seat coming up this week, so keep your eyes peeled. The questions were sent in by our readers.

Let us know in the comments below what you think about the election? Who will you be voting for? Do you think the expenses scandal will influence how people vote, or if they vote at all?

Image credit to Visit Manchester