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‘Left without a voice’: October general election could leave students in UK unable to vote
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2024
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UK Politics
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, last week hinted at a possible election October date during questioning by a House of Lords select committee.
Paul Greatrix, registrar of the University of Nottingham, told the Observer that if an election was called for mid-October he did not think the data could be processed in time.
With data suggesting that thousands of student voters had fallen off the electoral roll as a result of the new rules, many universities have introduced a system to sign students up automatically.
This requires every student to tick a box when they enrol at the university at the start of each year if they want their details to be passed on to their local council to register them to vote.
Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) think tank, said: “You now need to be pretty organised to apply for ID and register to vote in time, and not many young people on the cusp of a major change in their lives will be.”
Students have proved decisive in some university towns, for instance helping Labour to win both Canterbury and Leeds North West in 2017 and hold them in 2019.
The original article contains 678 words, the summary contains 195 words. Saved 71%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!