Interest in voting jumps after TV debate

Prime Minister Gordon Brown (R), Conservative Party leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg (L) take part in the first of Britain's leadership election debates at ITV studios in Manchester April 15, 2010.

LONDON (Reuters) - The number of Britons showing an interest in registering to vote surged after last week's TV debate between the three main candidates, official data showed on Wednesday.

The Electoral Commission reported an increase in the number of people visiting its website and downloading voter registration forms in the days following last Thursday's debate.

"The debate did have an impact. We did see a spike," said Jenny Watson, the head of the commission, on BBC radio, although she said other factors had played a part too.

On Thursday, 59,000 people visited the commission's website. On Friday the figure jumped to 100,000.

Over the weekend, 128,000 voter registration forms were downloaded -- twice as many as during the previous weekend.

A good performance in the debate by Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has resulted in a dramatic surge in popularity for his party which now threatens to win significant numbers of voters away from Labour and the Conservatives.

That makes it more likely that the election could produce a "hung parliament" in which no single party has an overall majority. Such an outcome could force two of the parties to make an alliance, but it is unclear who would team up with whom.

The Electoral Commission said that as well as the debate, a partnership with the Facebook social networking website over the weekend had contributed to the spike in interest in voting.

Over the weekend, which was the last before the deadline to register, people logging onto Facebook from Britain were presented with a message asking them whether they had registered and directing them to the commission's website.

"The Facebook link really helped us," said Watson.

Another factor was that the deadline to register was on Tuesday, which could have prompted a last-minute decision to register from many voters, the commission said.

(Editing by Steve Addison)