Elections 2010: electoral register boost

Manchester has experienced an upsurge in applications to be added to the city’s electoral register ahead of Thursday 6 May’s general and local elections.

Figures released today by Manchester City Council's elections unit show that 6, 816 people added their names to the city's electoral register this month. This compares with 500-800 applications in a typical month, or around 1,700 applications in the month before last year's European elections.

A dedicated call centre set up to answer residents' election-related enquiries took up to 3,600 calls a week in the three weeks before the 20 April registration deadline - with almost 1,000 calls on the busiest single day.

The high volume of requests is being attributed to the success of a national campaign by the Electoral Commission to encourage electoral registration, a similar 'Don't Lose Your Voice' campaign run across Manchester by the City Council and mounting interest in the election campaign.

Sir Howard Bernstein, (Acting) Returning Officer for Manchester, said: "This level of applications to be added to the electoral register has been unprecedented in recent years.

"We'd like to thank people for getting in touch in such numbers and for their patience and understanding at a time when we were experiencing a high volume of requests.

"Our elections staff have worked extremely hard to ensure all the electoral registration applications which were received before the deadline were processed in time."

For more information about the elections in Manchester visit www.manchester.gov.uk/elections2010

ISSUED ON BEHALF OF THE (ACTING) RETURNING OFFICER