Labour leader Ed Miliband has said that hundreds of people falling off the electoral register in University towns like Exeter is a democratic "scandal".
In Exeter, which has 18,865 students principally studying at the University , there are 6,446 "lost" voters as the total number of people registered has fallen 7.5% to 18,865.
Labour has calculated that almost one million people have dropped off the register in the last year as a result of what the party says was the "hasty" way the Government introduced individual voter registration – intended to reduce electoral fraud – without proper safeguards.
It says that many of the missing voters are young people – in part due to the decision to end the block registration by universities and colleges of students living in halls of residence.
In Plymouth – which boasts the University of Plymouth and University of St Mark and St John – the number of registered voters has fallen by 4,263 in the last year, or 2.4%, to 181,565. The city boasts 31,290 students.
More than 13,200 people in Cornwall, Devon and Somerset fall off the electoral roll – though the figure was up 5,700 in Cornwall.
In a calculated incursion onto Nick Clegg's political home turf in Sheffield, the Labour leader gave a speech to students at Sheffield Hallam University - in the next door constituency to the Deputy Prime Minister's.
In his speech, Mr Miliband promised to lead a "national mission" to ensure young voters were able to hold the coalition leaders to account on May 7.
"This government has betrayed young people," he will say. "Having broken their promises on tuition fees to young people, having failed to build the economy that will work for them, having short-changed their future, this is David Cameron and Nick Clegg's final insult to young people.
"They are sitting by and watching hundreds of thousands of young people in our country lose their sacred democratic rights. We will not allow this scandal to happen and no right-thinking person should either."
Mr Miliband called on the Government, the Electoral Commission, universities and local authorities to take urgent action by the end of the month to ensure that people can get back on the register before the deadline of April 20.
The allegations drew an angry response from the Lib Dems who accused Labour of "scaremongering", pointing out that Mr Clegg had secured extra funding to boost registration rates among students and other under-represented groups.
Lib Dem MP Tom Brake said that Mr Clegg had been responsible for securing £10 million of extra funding to support registration by students and other under-represented groups.
He said that many of the "missing" student voters would still be on the electoral roll but would have previously been registered twice.
"Labour must have forgotten they began the policy of individual electoral registration while they were in government and still support it in principle," he said.
"Instead of scaremongering, Labour should be working with their own local authorities to ensure that the large amount of money available is spent helping people, particularly students, register to vote."
