Over 400,000 Brexit vote applications after deadline extended
Technical fault in run up to deadline led to extension until midnight on June 9th
- Vote Leave accuses government of seeking more votes for Remain campaign
433, 695 voter applications were received in the UK after the government extended the registration deadline for the refrendum on Britain's membership of the EU, which will take place on June 23rd.
The decision to extend the deadline was taken after the online system which was used to register voters crashed on Tuesday evening, hours before the deadline. Younger voters, who are statistically more likely to vote Remain, were the ones most likely to be affected by the crash.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Philip Cowley, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said that many of those visiting the site will in fact already be registered to vote. Before the 2015 general election, there were 5 million applications, but the register only grew by 1.35 million people.
"A huge proportion of these applications will be completely wasted," he said. "That said, I suspect it’s true that these people, as so many of them are younger, are more likely to be ‘Remain’ people."
Vote Leave campaigners accused their opposition of trying to win last minute votes, by trying to register as many pro-EU voters as possible.