SCOTTISH voters are being urged to make sure they are properly registered to cast their vote to remind the Tories that Scotland’s voice must be heard.
The call came from SNP Depute Leader Keith Brown after the Electoral Reform Society (ERS) revealed that buried figures showed hundreds of thousands of Scots were missing from the electoral roll.
According to the ERS, the Electoral Commission’s first major study of the “completeness” of the electoral register in three years showed that 16% of people who should be on the Parliamentary roll are not, and 13% of entries are inaccurate.
It warned that unless those missing from the roll signed up soon after a snap election is called, they risked being disenfranchised.
While exact numbers are unavailable for the Parliamentary register, the ERS said up to 890,000 people in Scotland were missing from the local electoral roll.
As both registers have similar “completeness” levels, it said it could infer that hundreds of thousands of people in Scotland were missing from the electoral roll for a snap election.
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Brown said: “The coming election will be one of the most important in Scotland’s history.
“It will give us the opportunity to tell the Tory government that Scotland’s voice must be heard, and we won’t be dragged out of Europe against our will.
“It’s absolutely vital that those who can register to vote do so now – so that we can make Scotland’s voice heard loud and clear, and protect Scotland’s right to choose its own future.”
Dr Jess Garland, ERS policy and research director, said: “These figures should sound the alarm for anyone who cares about democracy. Hundreds of thousands of potential voters in Scotland are effectively missing from the electoral roll, representing a major barrier to political equality and democratic engagement. That means any snap election will be on the basis of a flawed franchise.”
ERS Scotland campaigns officer, Alice Kinghorn-Gray, added: “The gaps in registration are creating major inequalities in our elections, with young people and renters particularly affected.”
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