DAVID Cameron has urged people to continue to register to vote after an online glitch ahead of the EU referendum registration deadline.
The prime minister tweeted a link to the sign-up page and said “urgent discussions” were taking place to ensure people who register can vote.
The Electoral Commission called for the registration deadline to be extended.
The problems lasted from 22:15 BST on Tuesday until after the midnight deadline.
Users reported a page displaying the message “504 Gateway Time-out” instead of the online registration form.
The government blamed “unprecedented demand” with over half a million people trying to register to vote on Tuesday.
MPs have expressed anger at the events, with Lib Dem leader Tim Farron saying it was a “shambles” that could affect the referendum result.
Vote Leave said: ‘We want everyone to have a chance to vote in this referendum, however our main concern is that the Electoral commission seems to be doing so little stop EU nationals from registering to vote in this referendum.”
Ministers will be called to respond to an urgent question on the problems in the Commons at 12:30 BST.
Opening Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Cameron said people should continue to register on Wednesday, saying the government was working urgently with the commission to “make sure those who registered today and who registered last night will be able to vote in the EU referendum”.
According to the government’s data website, 525,000 people applied to register to vote during the day – 170,000 were aged 25 to 34, 132,000 under the age of 25 and 100,000 aged 35 to 44.
It also shows that the peak users came at 22:15 BST when 50,711 people were using the service at the same time.
There were 26,000 people on the site at 23:55 BST and 20,416 people using the site at 12:01 BST, just after the deadline.
The government’s data site does not record whether these users were successful or not in attempting to register to vote. It is also not clear whether these figures include those who got an error message.
