Voters line up to enter a polling station at Magdelen College in Oxford
Higher-than-expected turnout led to some stunning scenes, as hundreds of people were turned away from polling stations and police were called to deal with long lines as the 10:00 p.m. BST (5:00 p.m. ET) deadline passed with voters clutching invalid ballot papers in despair. British law states that polling-station doors must close at 10:00, and no ballot papers can be handed out after that. But anyone with a ballot in hand must still be allowed to vote, even after the deadline. In Hackney in northern London, angry would-be voters staged a sit-in after being denied the opportunity to cast their ballots, while in Liverpool, one polling station ran out of ballot papers. And in his own constituency in Sheffield, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg offered apologies to voters who had been waiting for more than three hours. The Electoral Commission, unsurprisingly, has already announced a "thorough review."