THE Tories narrowly avoided a second defeat in as many days in the Lords last night over partisan voter registration reforms that disenfranchise 1.9 million people.

Lib Dem and Labour lords launched a rebellion against government attempts to move the introduction of individual electoral registration (IER) forward by a year.

But in another knife-edge vote their motion was defeated by 11, with 246 voting for the motion against the government compared with 257 in support of the changes.

The system was set to be introduced with cross-party support from December 2016, allowing time to make the public aware of the changes.

But ministers have sparked controversy by pushing through the switch to the system in December 2015, against the advice of the Electoral Commission.

The Commission has warned the move will leave 1.8 million people without a vote in elections being held in Scotland, Wales and London in May.

Lib Dem Lord Tyler, who led yesterday’s bid to block the move, told Tory ministers they “should be ashamed.

“They hoped they’d get away with it unnoticed, but they’ve been found out.”

Labour’s Lord Kennedy, a former electoral commissioner, said the rush was “simply not democratic.”

Britain’s poorest constituencies will lose twice as many voters as the richest areas by the early shift to IER, said Hope Not Hate.

Electoral Reform Society deputy chief Darren Hughes warned: “Since poorer areas have lower registration rates, those areas with the greatest need could end up being the least represented.”

This could also skew the a boundary review in favour of rich areas because new constituencies will be based on the number of registered voters per constituency.