UNIVERSITIES and Labour councils have been accused of registering thousands of students to vote without their knowledge in a bid to boost left-wing turnout.
An investigation in one big uni town, Plymouth, has so far identified a total of 850 students and under 17 year-olds on the electoral register who hadnt completed their own applications.
Of those, 352 having already received polling cards from the Labour-run council before sceptical campaigners blew the whistle.
Under a legal change in 2014, it is illegal to register anyone else to vote.
Three Tory candidates in the South West city wrote to the Electoral Commission to ask for a full investigation amid suspicions the same suspect auto-enrolment is being carried out nationwide.
Reports have also been made to Tory HQ of similar student registrations en masse in Bournemouth.
One of the Plymouth candidates, Defence Minister Johnny Mercer, told HOAR: I struggle to understand how – when it is clearly illegal – names have been added to the electoral role without those individuals doing so themselves.
My fear is many other councils universities might also be doing this.
‘STRATEGIC IMPACT’
It goes without saying that this practice across the nation where seats are held or lost with just double digit vote numbers, could have a strategic impact in the outcome of elections.
The illicit Plymouth registration affects three different constituencies, including two marginal fights between Tory and Labour – Plymouth Moor
View and Plymouth Sutton and Devonport.
Opinion polls reveal students and the under 24s predominantly back left wing parties and favour Remain over Leave.
Plymouth Council began the internal investigation after receiving a slew of complaints.
A Plymouth Council spokesman admitted: In line with best practice we requested information from education institutions on students potentially eligible to register to vote.
We carried out checks on this data and uploaded the details of eligible students onto our electoral system.
However, due to a procedural error they were not sent an Invitation to Register form themselves prior to being uploaded onto the system.
All these students are being removed from the register.
Plymouth Council have already been reprimanded once this year for adding students names to their electoral roll without their permission during the local elections in May.
