NEARLY two million people across Britain may drop off the electoral register in December due to government changes in how we register to vote, a study showed yesterday.

Against the advice of the electoral watchdog, the government wants to end the transition period for the new individual electoral registration (IER) this December, a year earlier than planned.

This leaves far less time for people to register and will adversely affect young people, renters, certain ethnic minorities and students, research by anti-fascist campaign group Hope Not Hate found.

In the London borough of Hackney, 23 per cent of its population could lose their registration, which represents the proportion that the council has yet to verify.

The Electoral Commission said that given the evidence available and key polls due in May “we recommend that ministers should not make an order to bring forward the end of the transition to IER.”