Registration of young voters for the upcoming EU referendum surged yesterday, according to the Electoral Commission, easing fears over youth turnout for the vote on June 23rd.

The penultimate day for registering to vote on Britain’s membership of the European Union saw 226,000 individuals applying to vote, the second-highest total since online registration was introduced in 2014. Two-thirds of these applicants came from the under 34 cohort.

The news may calm fears about youth apathy, raised after a Universities UK poll found that a staggering 63 per cent of students were not able to name the referendum date (June 23rd), and 54 per cent did not even know the month of the vote.

The poll also found that 56% of those who were registered would not be in the same address at the time of the referendum. This is because polling day falls just a few days after the end of term for many universities, so students who failed to change their registered address, or apply for a postal vote, may miss out.

Some have blamed recent rule changes for the drop in students registrations. Universities used to be able to register students en masse, but this is no longer allowed.

Catherine Barnard, a professor in the Cambridge University Law Faculty, recently commented on these changes in Varsity, saying that registration was “an extra task to fit in alongside busy exam schedules and last-minute essay writing”.

The rule change, brought in by the Coalition government, is now causing difficulties for the Conservative majority government. In April, the government’s Universities Minister, Jo Johnson, wrote to the head of every college and university, urging them to get their students on the electoral register before the referendum, saying it will be “one of the biggest decisions of their lives”.

Tuesday is the final day to register.

Take part in Varsity’s European referendum opinion poll here