New analysis has suggested more than nine million people in Great Britain are not correctly registered for the May 6 elections, as the deadline to register to vote passes at the end of Monday.
Council and mayoral positions in England and Scottish and Welsh parliament seats are all up for grabs during the May 6 votes, but voters must be registered by 11.59pm on April 19 to cast their ballot.
The Electoral Commission’s report into the accuracy and completeness of the 2018 electoral registers in Great Britain showed there were between 8.3 and 9.4 million eligible voters who were not correctly registered, while there were also between 4.7 and 5.6 million inaccurate entries on the local government registers.
It prompted campaign group the Electoral Reform Society (ERS) to call for a major voting rights effort.
The ERS has proposed a package of measures to update the system, with suggestions to allow voters to check whether they are registered to vote online, as well as registering people automatically or when they engage with public bodies.
The group also suggested trialling same-day registration, drawing boundaries on the basis of the total population of eligible voters, and scrapping plans to impose mandatory voter identification due to millions of people lacking photo ID in the UK.
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