Young people are facing a “voter registration time bomb”, according to analysis by the Electoral Reform Society, whose analysis shows the number of school leavers on the electoral roll has dropped by more than a quarter in three years.

The society, which campaigns on access to democracy, said parties needed to step up their game to register young people, who are more likely to fall off the electoral roll after the introduction of individual electoral registration in 2014.

That change saw a shift from a single person, usually a parent, registering everyone in the household on their behalf to each voter having to register individually. Universities can also no longer automatically register students.

Crucially, the system has seen a sharp decline in the number of so-called attainers, 16- and 17-year-olds listed on the register so that they automatically receive voting rights when they turn 18. In Scotland, the number of attainers has dropped by more than a third since 2014 and by more than a quarter in England.

In Westmorland and Lonsdale, the constituency held by the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron, the number of attainers on the register has dropped by 75% over three years. Others with high fall rates included Hackney South and Shoreditch, held by Labour MP Meg Hillier, and Conservative MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan’s Berwick-upon-Tweed constituency.



Many of the areas that have seen the biggest drop have large black and minority ethnic communities, such as the Bethnal Green and Bow constituency. The ERS said it may be a sign that already marginalised groups have not re-registered since their parents or guardians stopped signing them up on their behalf.



How do you register to vote? You must be registered to have a vote in the election.

You can register at gov.uk/register-to-vote, which requires you to answer 11 questions including name, address, national insurance number and whether you want a postal vote. The deadline is midnight on 22 May. To ​qualify ​register you must be a British, Irish or ​ citizen, a ​qualifying Commonwealth citizen resident in the UK, ​or a n EU UK citizen resident in the UK EU . ​or a UK citizen living abroad who has been registered to vote in the UK in the last 15 years. If you are a student you may be able to register to vote at both your home and term-time addresses, but remember that it is illegal to vote more than once.

ERS’s chief executive, Katie Ghose, said: “These findings should sound the alarm to young people across the country that they need to register to vote if they want to have their say on 8 June.

“There is a real risk that this election could be one where the registration time bomb goes off, leaving hundreds of thousands without a voice. The collapse in the number of 16- and 17-year-olds on the register in 2016 is a warning sign to anyone who cares about political engagement and young people’s stake in our democracy.

Campaigners have also warned that another high-risk group is the more than 3 million private renters in England. Generation Rent and Acorn, both pressure groups for renters’ rights, estimate that about 1.8m private renters have moved home since the 2016 referendum and must therefore register again.

Renters need a government that will reform the housing market to protect them; we won't get one unless we vote for it Stuart Melvin, Acorn

Private renters are typically on tenancy agreements of no longer than 12 months and are six times more likely to move in a given year than homeowners, the groups said. A further 1.6 million private renters are estimated not to have been registered in the first place.

Acorn’s national organiser, Stuart Melvin, said renters’ rights were dependent on registering to vote. “Renters need a government that will reform the housing market to protect them from unfair evictions and rising rents, and we won’t get one unless we vote for it,” he said.

“Before renters can do that, they need to make sure they’re registered, and when you are on the register it is too easy to fall off it when you move.”

Nearly 7 million people are either not on the electoral roll or are incorrectly registered, Ghose said. The ERS has called for a reversal on the ban of universities signing up students, as well as moves towards automatic registration so that people have the chance to sign up when getting pensions, driving licences or moving home.