General election 2017: Two million apply to register to vote
More than two million people have applied to register to vote in the month since Theresa May announced plans for a snap general election on 8 June.
The highest number of applications so far was on 18 April, the day the prime minister made her announcement, when just over 150,000 people applied. The number of young people registering is the highest of any age group. The deadline to register online through the official website is 23.59 BST on Monday 22 May. The latest official figures published in March, before the election was called, showed that 45.7 million people were registered to vote in a general election as of 1 December 2016. The Electoral Commission have warned that approximately seven million people across Britain who are eligible to vote are not registered, including 30% of under 34s while only 28% of home movers in the past year have registered. Anyone wanting to vote on 8 June who is not already on the electoral register needs to sign up. It takes five minutes to register online if you live in England, Wales or Scotland. Alternatively, people can fill out and return a written form by post. Spike expected People are advised they may need their National Insurance number or their passport if they are a British citizen living abroad. If you live in Northern Ireland you must fill in a form and take it to your local electoral office. Since 18 April, 2.014 million people have signed up to vote although it has yet to be confirmed how many have been added to the electoral register. Although the number of people applying has dropped off a little after an initial flurry in mid-April, there are still significant numbers of voters making sure they can have their say at the ballot box. In six out of the past seven days, applications have exceeded 100,000. Of those applying to vote each day, nearly 40% have been under-25s, although people of all ages have been signing up. The 150,364 people who applied to register on 18 April was the biggest total recorded for a single day since the EU referendum campaign in 2016. There is expected to be a spike of applications in the run-up to Monday's deadline. In 2015, 500,000 people applied to vote on deadline day while registration for the EU referendum in 2016 had to be extended by 48 hours after the website crashed in the final few hours. Both Instagram and Snapchat will be carrying prominent reminders of the deadline on Monday in order to encourage their users to sign up.