The Labour party has extended the deadline to register as a voter in its leadership contest until 3pm on Wednesday after its website crashed.
Members of the public who want to sign up as members or registered supporters were granted extra hours to sign up following technical problems that hit the party's online registration pages earlier in the day. The deadline for new supporters who want to have their say in the leadership contest to sign up was supposed to be at midday.
Hundreds of thousands of new members, registered supporters, and affiliate members have joined Labour in recent months to vote in the leadership contest, resulting in a massive change to the party's internal electorate. Ballot papers will start being sent out to members from Friday onwards.
Earlier in the day, potential Labour supporters were met by error pages when they attempted to sign up to vote.
Labour website is crashing under weight of people trying to sign up to vote. Deadline midday. https://t.co/uMPEFt0TLU
The party has since apologised for the downtime and made the decision to extend the deadline.
Frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn, who is thought to have benefited from the influx of new members, is urging supporters to join up before the extended deadline.
Urgent update as so many had problems this morning the Party have extended the deadline until 3pm. So get registering
Dozens of staff at Labour HQ are currently checking new applicants to make sure they are eligible to vote and are not entryists from other parties attempting to disrupt the leadership vote. Several MPs on the right wing of the party have already called for the election to be postponed or rerun.