Commission highlights room for improvement in voting registration

The Electoral Commission has maintained that while the move to individual registration has produced more accurate voter records, there has been a slight decrease in their completeness.

The Commission cited data which showed that there was a nine per cent drop in the number of 18-19 year olds registered to vote. It called for more action to encourage young people to vote, suggesting automatic registration of 16 to 17 year olds, when they receive their National Insurance numbers.

The news comes after the system was changed last year to compel each person to register individually, rather than allowing the head of household to fill in the form.

The data found that between 7.6 and 8.3 million eligible people were not correctly register to vote at their current address. Local government registers on 1 December 2015 were 91 per cent accurate and 84 per cent complete, an increase in accuracy of four per cent and a slight one per cent decline in completeness.

Electoral Commission chair Jenny Watson said: “But there are still too many voters not correctly registered, particularly young people, and more needs to be done to correct this.”