More people download voter-registration forms

According to figures from the Electoral Commission, nearly 416,000 voter-registration forms have been downloaded from the About My Vote website between 15 March and today, the cut-off date.

The documents cannot be submitted online and have to be printed off in order to be signed and then posted or handed in to the voter’s local electoral registration office by 5pm tonight.

In 2005, the last time the UK went to the polls for a general election, around 49,000 voter-registration forms were downloaded. But this year's figures, provided by the Electoral Commission, show a nine-fold increase in downloads.

However, the Electoral Commission was quick to point out that it is nearly impossible to make like-for-like comparisons because there have been so many changes. More people now have broadband services and the registration process is longer.

A representative for the Electoral Commission also pointed out there is more information on the website to help people now.

Early indications suggest that this could lead to a big increase in the number of people voting. Just over half of the population (61.28 per cent) bothered to vote in 2005.

However, people will not be able to vote online at this election. Although e-voting has been used in Scotland and London, a representative of the Electoral Commission told us that there is no e-voting planned for the 2010 elections.

The Commission said: “there are significant security, transparency and cost-effectiveness issues that need to be addressed before any further consideration is given to introducing e-voting”.