Poor turnout among young British adults raises the risk that there will be a whole generation of non-voters who are not interested in taking part in polls, Britain's election watchdog said on Wednesday.
Research by the Electoral Commission suggested that since the 1960s there had been a steady rise in numbers of young people who did not vote and then kept up their non-participation as they aged, heralding what it described as a possible "Generation No-X".
A turnout of 61.4 percent of eligible voters for this year's election, won by Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party in May, was the third-lowest since 1847.
It followed another poor turnout in 2001 when just 59 percent voted, the lowest since the end of World War One, meaning nearly 18 million people had not bothered.
The commission said this could not just be put down to voter "apathy". It said other reasons such as people believing their vote would make no difference and the campaign being viewed as negative and stage-managed had proved a deterrent.
Sam Younger, the commission's chairman, said efforts to reverse the trend needed to be redoubled to prevent these voters being lost for good.
In a bid to reverse the falling turnout, Blair's government has been keen to broaden the way Britons can vote and gave people the opportunity to cast their ballot by post in May's election.
A record number, 12 percent of the electorate, took up the option but reports of postal ballot fraud dented its image.
The commission said 46 percent of people thought it was unsafe to vote by post, including a fifth of those who actually cast their ballot that way.