The deadline for registering to vote in the EU referendum has been extended with the government extending the cut-off point to midnight on Thursday June 9th.
A computer glitch left many unable to sign up before the first deadline on Tuesday night.
The glitch in fact was an overloaded system due to record numbers applying to get their chance to determine Britain’s future in, or outside the European Union.
The system failed just after 22:00 on Tuesday night and failed to restart before the deadline at midnight. Despite this embarrassing systems failure, 525,000 people applied to register to vote on Tuesday alone with 26,000 people on the site at 23:55 but unable to register.
Opposition parties expressed anger at tTuesday's events and called for an extension to the deadline, with Lib Dem leader and pro-Remain campaigner Tim Farron saying it was a "shambles" that could affect the referendum result.
During an urgent statement in the Commons, Conservative MP and Leave campaigner Bernard Jenkin said it might be legal to extend the deadline for a few hours, but said "any idea of rewriting the rules in a substantial way would be complete madness and make this country look like an absolute shambles" with a risk of a legal challenge to the referendum result.
To register, see: https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote
Comments
Worth noting that the majority of late enrollers were young people and that the Remain camp believe that most will vote for them.
It seems that Remain (the government) are happy to use dirty tricks so long as they win, which hopefully they won't.