Record numbers register for General Election

by Veronika Leitner

A record 230,000 voters registered online after the first ever TV debate in the UK, according to official numbers published by the Electoral Commission.

In the four weeks since Gordon Brown announced the general election, nearly half a million Britons downloaded a registration form, with 50,000 voters doing so on April 20, the official deadline for registration.

A recent ICM poll for the Guardian showed that about 20 per cent of voters changed their mind over what party to vote for after the debate.

A total of 60 per cent said that they were definitely going to vote in this election, raising hopes of a higher turnout than in 2005, when 61.4 per cent of the UK's population participated.

To encourage more young voters to participate, the Electoral Commission set up a Facebook group - ‘Democracy UK’ - which provides information, particularly for people who don’t want to read through hundreds of pages of political party manifestos.

The page provides tools like ‘My Vote Advisor’ and ‘Vote Match’ that can help individual voters find out which party’s policies they agree with most.

Research into the voter turnout during the General Election in 2005 showed that more than half of 18-24 year olds did not vote.

A spokeswoman for the Electoral Commission was therefore “delighted” that about 14,000 Facebook users were downloading registration forms after visiting the ‘Democracy UK’ site, saying: “We are especially pleased that so many of the visits were from people aged under 25, one of the age groups least likely to be registered to vote.”