In the euro election we’re voting in the East of England constituency which returns seven MEPs. Last time we returned three Tories, two UKIP members, one Lib Dem and one Labour. You can find a full list here (Tom Wise has since left UKIP and now sits as an independent).

Voting in the euro elections is rather different for two reasons: first it’s a list system, you vote by for a party, by putting an “X” next to the party you back and the parties each have a list of candidates. Depending on how many votes they get determines how many candidates from their list get elected. You can find a copy of all the parties and their lists of candidates here.

Make Votes Count have produced a web site for the euro elections which tries to explain how the elections work and why they matter so if you want to know more about how it works start there. The most important thing to stress this time around is that the higher the turnout, the harder it becomes for extremist parties to win seats so I really would urge you to vote in this election this time around as some of them are doing well on the back of recent events in Parliament.

Which brings us neatly on to the second thing which is different about the euro election which is that not many people really know what the European Parliament does and hence what the parties positions on key issues actually are (and that’s not helped by the rather bewildering array of parties on offer this time).

To help you make your choice the organisation Vote Match have produced an online tool – it asks you what you think about key issues: whether you’re for or against or whether they really don’t matter that much to you, and then it suggests who you should vote for based on your responses and the policies of the parties. Try it, you might be surprised at the result (I was).