The total number of eligible voters in St Albans for today’s historic EU referendum is 104,858, according to a district council spokesman.

That includes 21,413 postal votes which have been issued - but they may not necessarily all be returned.

There were 1,201 successful applications for proxy votes.

The spokesman said it was not possible to compare the number of eligible voters for the General Election “because the polling area for the district contains parts, but not all, of two Parliamentary constituencies. Those constituencies also take in parts of North Hertfordshire and Three Rivers council areas.”

He said the council also could not say how many people had registered since the May district elections for the EU referendum.

There have been duplicate registrations and there will also be registrations from EU citizens who are not eligible to vote.

But, he added, interest in the vote was “very high and the Electoral Commission has been predicting a turnout of 80 per cent or more”.

The turnout for the St Albans constituency at the 2015 General Election was 75.1 per cent, while for Hitchin and Harpenden it was 74 per cent.

In Hertsmere, 73,196 people have registered to vote in the referendum, compared to 73,767 in last year’s General Election.

The Herts Advertiser was told that while some might expect the figure to be higher, at the end of the transition of Individual Electoral Registration in December 2015, 2,600 electors had been removed.