General Election 2015: Huge drop in registered voters could have crucial impact on who forms next government, experts warn

The numbers on the register in Britain have fallen by more than 800,000 over the last year, prompting warnings that the democratic system is close to crisis

(BEN STANSALL | AFP | Getty Images)

A sharp drop in registered voters could have a crucial impact on who forms the next government, experts warned, after as many as 11,000 vanished from the electoral roll in marginal constituencies.

The numbers on the register in Britain have fallen by more than 800,000 over the last year, prompting warnings that the democratic system is close to crisis.

The figures were published by the Office for National Statistics ahead of Monday’s deadline for people to register to vote next month. Some of the biggest falls have taken place in electoral battlegrounds where the margin of victory could be a few hundred votes.

In Liberal Democrat-held Cardiff Central, which is among Labour’s key targets, the electoral roll shrank by almost one-fifth last year, with 11,600 names falling off the list. The electorate in Loughborough, where the Conservative Education Secretary Nicky Morgan is defending a 3,744 majority over Labour, has fallen by 8,500.

More than 10 per cent of adults have dropped off the register in Brighton Pavilion, where the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas is resisting a strong Labour challenge.

Many of the steepest falls, which follow the introduction of a new system of individual voter registration, have occurred in areas with large student populations. The change of rules means that the block registration of halls of residence has ended, putting the onus on students to sign up individually.

Graham Allen, the chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform select committee in the last parliament, said: “We are not far from a crisis of our democracy.” He added: “The opinion polls seem to be telling us that [the election] is very tight. If the question of voter registration impacts some of the key seats being fought that could influence who forms the government.”

Will Brett, head of campaigns at the Electoral Reform Society, said there was an even bigger problem in the millions of people permanently absent from the register.

“We know who they are and it could have an effect on the election result,” he said. “But it also has an effect on their democratic rights which is what we are more worried about.”

The number of registered voters in the UK fell from 46,139,940 at the end of 2013 to 45,325,078 in December, a drop of 1.8 per cent.

There was a 2 per cent fall in England and a 3.2 per cent fall in Wales, although the number rose by 0.3 per in Scotland, possibly because of last September’s independence referendum, and by 1.3 per cent in Northern Ireland.

The new registration system, which came into force in England and Wales in July and in Scotland in October, means that voters can no longer be registered by the head of a household but can now add their names online.

The change is thought disproportionately to affect young adults living in shared accommodation or with their parents as well as students. That could affect Labour as it tends to win support in larger numbers from this age group.

The Cabinet Office said it had run campaigns with councils and the National Union of Students to raise awareness of the need to register. Cardiff City Council also said it had run a series of information campaigns.

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