Perhaps not the fashionable thing to say these days, but Parliament deserves credit for getting one legal change right: altering the law a while back so that the deadline for joining the electoral register falls during a general election campaign rather than before it.
This time that means the deadline for registration fell on Tuesday – after several days of heavy media coverage about the election and after the surge in interest from younger people courtesy of the first TV debate.
Imagine all the frustrations if people have been enthused and then found the law meant it was too late to sort out being able to vote. Instead, despite the efforts of some, we’ve had the following:
About 375,000 people have downloaded voter registration forms in the past 10 days, the election watchdog says … It said it had been particularly encouraged by the number of younger people doing so. More than 40% of those accessing forms were aged between 18 and 24, the group most likely not to register. (BBC)
So on this occasion, take a bow Parliament.
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