Jun 9th, 2016

Register-to-vote crisis update

By Samuel Read

UPDATE: In the space of a few hours, 38 Degrees members have had a huge impact on democracy. Together, we created a wave of pressure to force the government to extend the deadline to register to vote – after their website crashed on Tuesday night.

Now we urgently need to tell our friends and family everyone’s got until 11.59pm today to register to vote. Here’s the link to register to vote:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/register-to-vote-extended

Yesterday, we’ve proved the power we have when tens of thousands of us come together to stand up for our right to vote. 38 Degrees members won’t all be voting the same way in the EU referendum, but if there’s one thing we all agree on it’s that everyone deserves to have their say.

Here’s what’s happened yesterday:

8am: The media reports that the government’s website crashed – meaning tens of thousands of people couldn’t register to vote for the EU referendum.

10am: 15 people a second are signing the emergency petition to Matt Hancock – the minister in charge of voter registration – demanding that the deadline to register is extended. The petition reaches 80,000 signatures from 38 Degrees members in a few hours. And thousands of us tweet Matt Hancock directly.

1pm: The Telegraph, Guardian and Daily Mail reported on 38 Degrees’ emergency petition as proof of public outcry on the fiasco – adding further pressure on the government to act. [1]

3pm: Matt Hancock announces that the government’s extending the deadline.

And here’s a photo of the petition being handed into Parliament this afternoon:

Please tell everyone you know – now – that they’ve got until 11.59pm today to register to vote. Here’s the link to register to vote:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/register-to-vote-extended

NOTES:
[1] Screenshot from The Guardian’s live blog today: