The Non-Registration Scandal

The previous Labour government allowed itself to be pushed into legislating for individual electoral registration, rather than the older system of having one person fill in the form for the whole household.  I think this was prompted by scaremongering about fraudulent votes.  In fact, not getting on the register at all is a much bigger problem with an estimated six million people not registered who should be.  The whole issue is covered in a House of Commons Library paper here. 

This could have real effects on election results after 10 June this year, with particularly younger voters, Europeans and people in private rented accomodation being much less likely to be registered.  It will also affect the next review of constituency boundaries if they use 2014 or subsequent years as a baseline.  Areas with young populations or lots of private renting will seem to have smaller populations and this will distort constituency boundaries.