Last week in Parliament, Unlock Democracy launched a report and call for party leaders to pledge to introduce automatic voter registration in the UK.

With 8 million people missing or not correctly registered, voter registration reform is vital to enabling many citizens to vote. The missing millions are disproportionately the young and mobile – with nearly all over 65+s registered – and important variations by nationality and ethnicity too.

Indeed, one of the most troubling trajectories is the collapse in attainer registration – the next generation of voters are not being enrolled.

This matters because, as Alistair Clark and I have shown over several years, electors are commonly turned away in polling stations for not being on the register. But also because the boundaries are also drawn without the missing millions..

The report explains that there are three steps towards registering every voter and insuring an inclusive democracy:

The case for AVR has been growing in recent years. Holly Ann Garnett and I have showed how AVR increases both the accuracy and completeness of electoral registers, through a global comparative analysis.

Meanwhile Paul Bernal and I undertook a detailed analysis of how/whether AVR could work in the UK.

An updated report summarising the case was shared with parliamentarians from many political parties – who have given their support last week.

The report was featured in Daily Mirror and there is a public petition calling on party leaders to back reforms to Register Every Voter.