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More than a million register to vote in UK in final week as election application deadline looms

The deadline for registering to vote is just hours away: Getty Images
The deadline for registering to vote is just hours away: Getty Images

More than a million people have sent voter applications to secure their say in the general election over the past week.

Between Monday 18 and Sunday 24 November, 1,036,450 people submitted their details either online or by post, official figures show.

Brits have until 11.59pm tonight to apply online, to either register for the vote or update their details, ahead of the December 12 election.

Those wanting to vote by post have until 5pm to register in England, Scotland and Wales, while the deadline for voters in Northern Ireland to apply for a postal vote has already passed.

Of the 2.98 million applications submitted between October 24 and November 24, the biggest spike was seen on Friday, when nearly 308,000 registrations were recorded.

This coincided with BBC One's Question Time special, which saw Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn, Jo Swinson and Nicola Sturgeon grilled by a live studio audience.

It comes as celebrities use social media to encourage their followers to register ahead of tonight’s deadline.

A video posted on Instagram by Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke urging people to register had been viewed over 5.7 million times by Tuesday morning.

Around 45.8 million people were recorded as registered to vote as of December 2018, according to the Office for National Statistics.

More than 2.8 million voters have joined them on the register since then, after MPs agreed at the end of October to a pre-Christmas snap election.

This is a million more than the comparable pre-deadline period during the last general election in 2017, Electoral Reform Society reported.

Around two-thirds, or 70 per cent, of those who have registered since the end of October are under the age of 35, and more than a million are under 25.

But only 66 per cent of 18 to 19-year-olds are currently registered to vote correctly, the Electoral Commission warned yesterday.