The UK government website for registering to vote in the EU referendum collapsed under the weight of a record-breaking, last-minute surge in applications yesterday (June 7). More than half a million people were inspired to register to vote on deadline day.
Today, pressure has been mounting on the government to introduce legislation to extend the deadline. ”There will be many people who wanted to register to vote last night and were not able to,” said the Electoral Commission, the UK’s independent elections watchdog.
For those people, some good news: The Cabinet Office announced that the deadline for registering to vote has been extended to midnight on June 9. Minister for the Cabinet Office Matt Hancock tweeted:
The Electoral Commission welcomed the move, saying that ”no one should miss out on voting in this historic referendum” due to technical glitches.
Opinion polls suggest the result of what is a tight race could come down how many young people vote. Younger voters are more inclined to favor remaining in the EU. Notably, 302,000 of yesterday’s registrants were under the age of 35.