Almost half a million voters registered in the final hours before the deadline to participate in the 7 May UK general election, the vast majority of them young people.
More than 485,000 people registered to vote online on Monday, with 16,000 paper applications made.
According to figures from Gov.uk’s voter registration site, thousands left their registration until the last minute – quite literally. The Electoral Commission data shows that more than 3,700 people were accessing the service at 11.59pm on Monday night. Spikes from Monday evening saw more than 18,000 people accessing the site at certain times.
Of those registering online during the final day, almost 60% were from the two youngest age brackets: 152,000 were aged 25-34, with 137,000 under 24.
The oldest voters, those over 75, were the least likely to still be attempting to register, with just 5,303 registering online on Monday.
Numbers were buoyed by a last-minute push by broadcasters and on social media, which saw celebrities including Queen’s Brian May, actor Michael Sheen and former Doctor Who star Christopher Eccleston tweet and share links to voter registration. The number of people registering increased almost four-fold from the previous day.
Vistors to the registration site have unsurprisingly dropped off significantly since the deadline passed, but around 700 people were still visiting the site on Tuesday lunchtime despite registration being closed.
Fears had been raised about a drop in voter numbers after individual registration was introduced, knocking 1 million people off the electoral register.
Electoral Commission research from 2014 found that 7.5 million people who are eligible to vote were not on the electoral register before the new online system was introduced.
Students in particular were considered most likely to have failed to re-add themselves to the register, as they were most likely to have moved home since the 2010 poll.
The numbers registering on Monday far outstripped the second highest day, which was National Voter Registration Day on 5 February when 166,000 people registered to vote.
A spokesperson for the Electoral Commission said: “If people had decided to register on the final day in the past they would have to have filled out a paper application and taken it to their local electoral registration office.
“This time, people only had to click on a link to fill in a form which takes five minutes. It makes it much easier.”
