UK vote deadline looms for £1.3m Londoners still not registered

Millions of people were today warned they risk being “Cinderella voters not able to go to the polls” if they fail to register to take part in the general election by today’s midnight deadline.

A record 366,000 people applied to vote yesterday and the deadline for millions more to do so is 11.59pm tonight — which can be done at gov.uk/register-to-vote — or 5pm if they want a postal vote.

The surge was driven by 150,000 under-25s and 114,000 25 to 34-year-olds.

More than three million people have applied to vote since the Liberal Democrats and Scottish Nationalist Party announced at the end of October that they would back the first December election since 1923.

However, between 900,000 and 1.3 million people are not correctly registered in London, so will not be able to vote on December 12, with millions more around the country in this position.

Professor Tony Travers, of the London School of Economics, an expert in government, told the Evening Standard: “It’s clearly an election like no other. So whether you are trying to deliver Remain or Leave, or whether you wish to vote for or against Johnson or Corbyn, these are landmark choices.

“Given the amount of effort being made by councils and employers like universities, to fail to register to vote risks wilfully losing your say.

“People should not risk being Cinderella voters — not able to go to the polls.”

The 366,000, a peak for this election, is believed to have been partly driven by rapper Stormzy urging his millions of fans to sign up.

Cabinet minister Michael Gove this morning took a swipe at the grime star for backing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and attacking Prime Minister Boris Johnson as “sinister”.

Mr Gove told Talk Radio: “I think we again know that Stormzy, when he took to the stage at Glastonbury wearing a stab vest, he made clear what his political views were then. He is a far, far better rapper than he is a political analyst.”

Part of Stormzy’s lyrics at the festival included an expletive and a reference to “Boris”.

Anthony Wells, pollster YouGov’s director of political research, said: “Turnout is always important and getting supporters out will always be a factor in close races.

“However, it is easy to overstate its impact, especially in high-turnout elections like general elections when most people are going to vote anyway.

“It usually emerges that a large proportion of ‘new’ registrations are actually people who were already on the register.”

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