Millions not registered to vote

Nearly six million people who are eligible to vote have not been registered according to the Electoral Commission.

The independent elections watchdog's research shows that the number of people not on the electoral roll has increased over the last decade. The report, released today, also shows that only 77 percent of the Black and Minority Ethnic community are on the register compared with 86 percent of white voters. Shockingly, just over a half of 19-to-24 year olds are signed up to vote while 2.6 million people wrongly believe they have been registered.

Jenny Watson, Chair of the Electoral Commission, said,

This should be of concern for everyone who cares about democracy. There are many reasons behind the decline in registration – including changes to our population and increasing disengagement with traditional party politics. But we know almost half of those not registered mistakenly think they are, and more needs to be done to address this.

She added,

Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) need to keep finding better ways of identifying people we know are less likely to be registered, and they will need adequate funding from local authorities to do that properly. The Commission gives guidance to EROs to help them do this more effectively, but it should be remembered that our guidance is just that - and we do not have powers to intervene. We will also keep targeting under-registered groups, through our own public awareness campaigns.

The government has talked about their plans to change the voter system from household registration to individual electoral registration (IER). Ministers believe IER can reduce fraud as currently ID is not required to register each voter in England, Scotland and Wales.

But the government may rethink some of their proposals with campaigners fearing that a dramatic overhaul of the registration system would a dramatic decline in the number of registered voters.

Responding to the report from the Electoral Commission, shadow justice minister Sadiq Khan said that the findings from the Electoral Commission were "a disaster for British democracy."

He said,

This report is a timely reminder of the need to work to increase electoral registration levels. It also highlights the fact that that the government's flawed proposals for introducing individual electoral registration must include adequate checks and balances to mitigate against a sharp fall in the numbers registered to vote.