Postal vote application deadline today

Councils were today verifying the last flurry of applications from people to register to vote – with the deadline to ask for a postal ballot coming at 5pm.

As many as 7.5 million people across the country are feared to have not gone on to the electoral register - with many of those due to changes in the rules.

It is now a requirement for each individual to register themselves, whereas it used to be up to just one person in a household to register everyone.

Students living away from home or people who have moved house were considered among the most at risk of losing their right.

Around 1.7 million registered in the past five weeks alone after a last minute push by the Electoral Commission.

David Winnick, who is standing for election for Labour in Walsall North, has previously called for it to be compulsory to at least turn out to a polling station or abstain in writing.

He said: "It is a serious concern that there may be many people who have missed out on voting because of the change. People who would otherwise have been registered were not unless they did it themselves."

Mr Winnick has called for the UK to adopt a similar system to Australia where people are fined unless they use their right to vote.

His call came amid concern that there would be some constituencies where turnout could be below 50 per cent. Individual voter registration took effect last year and was brought in to tighten up the security around postal voting following concerns that the system was open to abuse.

Voters had until today to ask their councils for a postal ballot.

Some voters have already begun receiving their postal ballot papers if they applied a while ago.

Paul Uppal, the defending Conservative for Wolverhampton South West, said people had raised concerns about postal voting at the last election.

He said: "This country is renowned for fair and open democracy. But postal voting has been exposed to fraud and it was important we take this step to safeguard the system."