Millions of people are not registered to vote correctly due to ‘persistent and serious' problems with the way elections are run, a new report has warned today.

The report, published by the University of East Anglia (UEA), called on the Government to provide a website so people can check if they are registered, allow citizens to vote at any polling station, create a centralised complaints system and register young people in schools and universities.

Professor Toby James, from UEA's school of political, social and international studies, said: ‘Cash crises in the NHS and schools have regularly made headlines, but there has been a silent crisis in electoral services departments too. Cutbacks have long been in place and staff workloads and levels of stress have been shown to be excessively high.'