AS the deadline passed yesterday to register to vote, 117,477 people in Wales signed up who were not previously on the voters toll.

However, the The Electoral Reform Society (ERS) is calling for the next government to bring in Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) across the UK to make it easier for people to cast their vote and help enfranchise millions of missing voters. Wales is already planning to introduce AVR, with legislation progressing through the Senedd currently. This should be introduced for 2026, pending a successful pilot. 

AVR can work in a number of ways. It involves registration officers pre-populating the register from existing databases, rather than voters having to initiate the registration process themselves.

The ERS’s call comes after government figures showed that just under 2.9 million applications to register to vote were made from between when the general election was called on May 22nd and the registration deadline of 23:59 on June 18th. Despite a huge surge on the last day of 632,863 applications lifting the total figure, the overall number of applications is still well short of the around 8 million people the Electoral Commission says are not registered to vote or registered incorrectly.

Following yesterday’s deadline, the final number of registrations since the general election was called stood at 2,898,265. This broke down as 2,450,646 in England, 281,339 in Scotland, 117,477 in Wales and 48,803 in Northern Ireland.

Willie Sullivan, Senior Director of the Electoral Reform Society, said: “Despite a huge surge in last-minute applications to register to vote, it is clear today that millions of voters will still be missing from the electoral rolls come polling day. That means millions of people will effectively be locked out of having their say on the direction of the country in the coming years.

“This should be the last election where we are in this damaging situation. We are calling on whoever is in government after July 4th to bring in Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) across the UK, which is already set to be introduced into Wales.

“Moving to AVR would be a win-win for the next government as it would make life easier for voters by taking one more thing off their to-do list while at the same time strengthening our democracy by helping enfranchise millions of missing voters.

“However, the high number of unregistered voters also points to a deeper malaise in our politics, where millions of people are clearly disengaged with our democracy. This comes at a time when trust in our politics is also now at rock bottom.

“A big part of the problem is people not feeling that their vote counts or has any meaningful impact, which is a direct result of the distorting First Past the Post voting system used for Westminster elections.

“Our research found that at the last general election over 22 million votes (70.8%) didn’t count towards the result, in that they were either cast for a losing candidate or surplus votes for the winner.

“The next government urgently needs to grip the crisis of trust in politics and disengagement with our democracy, and a key part of that has to be bringing in a fairer proportional voting system that means every vote would matter come election day and seats in Parliament would more accurately reflect the way the country voted.”