Partisan groups financing non-political voter registration campaigns
Video report and article by ITV News Correspondent Rupert Evelyn
Tens of thousands of pounds have been spent on social media campaigns getting young people on the electoral roll.
Vote For Your Future (VFYF) is at the forefront of a campaign to register voters but there are questions about their claim of being “non-partisan”.
Why, for example, is the group taking money from the pro-remain organisation Best for Britain?
Despite her website admitting to it, VFYF Director Lara Spirit initially denied receiving the funds.
She also denied anything untoward about the source of funding.
The organisation say they’ve never pushed voters in any direction, but focus entirely on trying to sign-up the third of young people believed to be unregistered.
It’s a situation they say “is nothing short of a democratic crisis and Vote For Your Future is committed to addressing this imbalance”.
Until September, Ms Spirit was Director of high profile Remain group Our Future Our Choice.
Since then she’s worked to encourage huge numbers of unregistered young people to sign-up.
She refutes the suggestion that her new organisation is anything other than impartial.
Election law is not always clear.
As a “non-partisan” organisation VFYF is not, for example, signed up as a “non-party campaigner” even though they have spent substantially more than the £20,000 that would normally trigger registration.
The Electoral Commission told us they had spoken to Vote for your Future who they say are aware of the rules.