Emergency legislation will be introduced to allow voters to continue registering until midnight on Thursday

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The deadline for registering to vote in the EU referendum is to be extended to midnight on Thursday as Whitehall scrambles to recover from the collapse of a government website.

Ministers have been forced to make room in the parliamentary programme for emergency legislation that will allow tens of thousands of people to register following the website’s crash on Tuesday night, two hours short of the original deadline.

Leave campaigners have reacted angrily to the development, claiming the government is trying to skew the result of the referendum by extending the deadline.

The government is expected to rush through legislation on Thursday to ensure that the collapse of the official registration portal does not disenfranchise tens of thousands of people before what is expected to be a close contest.

It follows a bruising 24 hours for the Cabinet Office, whose website could not cope with the demand for registrations.



Earlier, David Cameron told the House of Commons the government would ensure voters had a chance to register for the referendum.

The development followed pressure from the elections watchdog and opposition politicians who called for the government to step in after the website’s collapse.

EU referendum: Emergency legislation will extend voter registration deadline to midnight Thursday Read more

Political observers have said that many of those who could not register were younger voters who tend to support the remain camp.

In a statement, the Cabinet Office minister Matt Hancock said the government would introduce secondary legislation to extend the deadline for voter registration until midnight on Thursday.

“Having taken the decision today, we think it is right to extend to midnight tomorrow to allow people who have not yet registered time to get the message that registration is still open.”

Cameron earlier told the House of Commons: “People should continue to register today. The Electoral Commission has made a statement this morning urging the government to consider options that would effectively extend the deadline and these should include legislative options, and we are doing that.”

Those who support leaving the EU were suspicious that the collapse of a government website could be exploited by the remain camp. The chief executive of the Vote Leave campaign, Matthew Elliott, said the government was “trying to register as many likely remain voters as possible”.

“Don’t let the government skew the result of the referendum – make sure you and your friends are all registered today,” he said.

Bernard Jenkin, the Conservative chair of the public administration and constitutional affairs committee, questioned whether there was time to introduce legislation and raised the possibility of a legal challenge if the referendum result was close.

“By law the register has to be finished six days before the date of the poll. There has to be a five-day period for objecting to any name on the register when it goes on, so that is 11 days.



“We are just about 11 days away from the referendum,” he said.

Doubts also remained over whether there would be an extension to the deadline for postal votes.

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and other opposition figures called for action after the Cabinet Office website would not allow voters to input their details at 10.40pm on Tuesday. Voters had been encouraged for weeks to register before 11.59pm to be able to take part in the EU referendum.

In an unusual intervention, the Electoral Commission on Wednesday urged the government to introduce legislation that would extend the deadline.



A commission spokesperson said: “There will be many people who wanted to register to vote last night and were not able to. We have said to the government this morning they should consider options for introducing legislation as soon as possible that would extend the deadline. We would support such a change.”

Cameron was among senior figures who had urged people to sign up before the midnight deadline.

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: “Given the history of government IT problems, it is extraordinary that there were no contingency arrangements in place. Instead we have blind panic and chaos.

“It is legal to extend the deadline. There are a number of options the government can use. My sense is we should extend the deadline for anybody for another 24 hours.

“People might have seen the debate last night and wanted to register, that is valid. It seems many trying to register were young people. It would be a travesty if their first experience of democracy was this shambles.

“Evidence shows younger people are overwhelmingly pro-European, and if they are disenfranchised it could cost us our place in Europe. It could also turn them off democracy for life. Voters must be given an extra day while this mess is sorted out urgently.”

The Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, also appeared to agree that the voter registration deadline should be extended for a day.

“I think there have been some pretty big clarion calls for people to register and my understanding is that a very, very large number of people have. So if the website crashed last night then maybe the sensible thing is to extend it by a day but I really wouldn’t go beyond that,” he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.

According to government data, more than 50,000 people attempted to register to vote between 11.15pm and 11.20pm on Tuesday.

A Cabinet Office spokeswoman said officials became aware of technical issues on gov.uk/register-to-vote late on Tuesday night owing to “unprecedented demand”.



“We tried to resolve the situation as quickly as was possible and to resolve cases where people tried to register but were not able to,” she said.

The Labour leader wrote:



Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) I'm told https://t.co/qXdulxPFk2 site has crashed so people can't register to vote for #EUreferendum. If so, deadline has to be extended

Yvette Cooper, the former Labour minister, also called for the government to extend the deadline. “People cannot be denied the right to vote because computer says no,” she tweeted.

