The Herald does not endorse political parties.

For long years we have maintained that our readers are more than capable of reaching decisions in these matters unaided. We also hold that journalism loses much of its power to question, scrutinise and investigate those in power if its loyalties are torn. We tell no one how to vote; we hold no brief for any one party.
Tomorrow's General Election presents circumstances, nevertheless, that are in some regards unique and in others without recent precedent. No one who is claiming to foretell the result can be trusted. No one deserving trust - or anyone else - can predict which of a dizzying number of possible outcomes will cause a government to exist by the week's end. Those facts alone deserve discussion.
We live amid new politics. This is a multi-party age with every sign that the old, familiar era of alternating Labour and Conservative administrations has gone for good. This week, the balance of power will matter as least as much as the sheer, simple power that was once the paramount justification for the first-past-the-post system. There is that question to consider: is the United Kingdom best served by the traditional electoral steeplechase?
Paradoxically, the inquiry refutes apathy. There is precious little excuse for claiming that "voting changes nothing"; that "they" are all the same. From Belfast to Berwickshire, Bangor to Birmingham, local decisions can produce mighty consequences. Two once-dominant parties might fixate on a few swing seats and a few thousand voters. They are mistaken. If they knew the UK with supernatural accuracy they would not be scrambling for support in these last hours. If their wizardry had been perfect, they would not have been taken aback by the phenomenon of the SNP.
Tactical voting is another of those personal choices we leave to our readers. You can pick between a broad desired outcome, or you can insist that democracy matters only when you vote according to your beliefs. You cannot say in 2015 that your vote will not matter. 
Electoral apathy creates the wasteland it affects to detest. In this year, when nothing whatever is inevitable, the wisdom of crowds is more than a cliché. All votes count. To achieve what? The markets, living for certainty, would dearly like an answer to that question. Big investment decisions and many jobs are riding on the collective wisdom of the great, variegated British crowd. Those markets send a message to all politicians, but particularly to those who have become too accustomed to the fun of post-electoral haggling. 
Waiting weeks for party triumphalism or wounded pride to find a compromise is a luxury the UK cannot afford. If Commons business needs to be done, have it done promptly, and in good faith. The end result of this long, yet fascinating, campaign must be stable government for each and every part of these islands. As even the SNP and Plaid Cymru have been eager to concede, this has not been a contest over the constitution. A government is being chosen.
 On May 8, economic policies will need to be promoted, hospitals funded, soldiers fed, police officers paid, and government gilts bought or sold. The preening of victors or the dejection of losers count as secondary, trivial matters. Whoever means to take a grip must do so promptly. When the polls close, games end. Those who have called it a dull campaign have strange ideas of what matters in a functioning democracy. Europe, immigration, austerity, Trident: these are not trivia, nor even the beginnings of a list. There are great issues before us. Scotland - the fact should surprise no one - ranks high. Would a federal solution address the several challenges facing the UK? 
Stating a case does not answer the question in an age of fragmented politics and insurgent parties. For all that, the question will have to be addressed. How can we reach a federal Union, responsive to all, when four in five (at least) of voters belong to the dominant partner country?
Devolution for England is a more fundamental matter than any quick-fix tinkering with Commons procedures. You could call it the West Riding Question. Sooner or later, and preferably sooner, the UK will need to balance the wishes of its peoples with their representation in the political system. If this is not done, or at least attempted, the issues that have characterised the 2015 campaign will return in five years, if not sooner. Are the Scots suddenly too strong? Is Yorkshire therefore too weak? That, beneath all the froth, is the UK's conundrum. 
The burden of solving the puzzle falls on those who would see the Union preserved. Might an English parliament, with a UK senate replacing the outdated and outmoded House of Lords, be the answer? A properly functioning and truly representative senate could provide the checks and balances that underpin democracy; perhaps particularly so in Scotland with its unicameral parliament and a growing concern about that institution being held to account under a government with an inbuilt majority, enjoying the powers that flow from that fact. 
But federalism also poses a question for the SNP. If the stated intention of that party's campaign is to aid better government for everyone in these islands, how would a voter in Cornwall benefit from Scottish Nationalists holding the balance of power in London? If Nicola Sturgeon is to be taken at her word, her party would act constructively and responsibly at Westminster to build a bolder and better Britain. That pledge will be rigorously scrutinised.
Those who question the SNP's legitimacy as a power bloc at Westminster have their heads in the sand. It is only a matter of months since the pro-Union parties passionately urged Scotland to stay in that Union.  They cannot complain if, in the ensuing General Election, a phalanx of Nationalists take their seats in the Commons. Those Unionist parties (Liberal Democrats aside) would need no reminding that it was an outdated electoral system, rejected for Holyrood but blindly adhered to for Westminster, that delivered the Scottish verdict.
Another great paradox of this campaign has been the emergence of Ms Sturgeon, leader of a party contesting only Scotland, as the most popular politician across these islands. Labour have fought two campaigns, one in Scotland, the other everywhere else. Jim Murphy's Glasgow man has been abandoned with the focus shifting to saving the seat of the Scottish Labour leader and other high-profile Labour figures. Yet Ed Miliband has had a good campaign, Scotland aside where support has collapsed. He has not crumbled, as the Conservatives expected. They have resorted to type, their attacks on the SNP in particular bearing testimony to the Tories as the nasty party.  
The parties have set out their stalls in a campaign that was too long and lacked the engagement of the citizen voter. But it is your choice. The singular, too often forgotten glory of our elections, with all their mudslinging and cheap tricks, is that the fact endures. Campaigns are tawdry often enough; democracies are not. If the UK emerges by the week's end with a stable government, responsible leaders and much to think about, we will have done well enough.