Millions of ‘missing voters’ cost Labour seats due to electoral boundaries bias

A polling station in Hillingdon, west London, on local elections day in July 2023, when the Tories won a narrow victory over Labour in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip ballot. Photograph: Maureen McLean/Shutterstock

British democracy is being “warped” by an unfair system for drawing constituency boundaries that ignores millions of “missing voters” and hugely benefits the Tories, according to a new study of official data.

Analysis by the political commentator and pollster Peter Kellner shows that if constituencies were determined according to the size of their populations rather than the number of registered voters – as happens in most other advanced democracies – then the number of extra Labour seats created would cut the Tories’ Commons majority by 22.