People who flew in on Thursday were in the chance to pick up their voting documents from the Electoral Office until midnight that same evening.

However, 5,266 voting documents remained uncollected, statistics issued by the Department of Information (DOI) yesterday revealed.

In all, 309,016 out of a total of 315,357 eligible voters, or 98.3 per cent, have a voting document they can use today.

In table below, the 97.99 per cent indicated in the last column represents the average percentage of voting documents collected.

Back in 2003 when the last general election was held, 2,377 voting documents had remained uncollected. Then, there were 294,106 eligible voters, meaning that 0.8 per cent had not picked up their voting document.

A breakdown of the number of uncollected voting documents issued by the DOI showed that the 10th and 12th districts had the highest percentages of uncollected votes. These districts are Gzira, Pembroke, St Julian’s and Sliema (10th district) and Mellieha, Naxxar and St Paul’s Bay (12th district).

The lowest percentages of uncollected votes, on the other hand, were registered in the 4th and 7th districts. These are made up of Gudja, Ghaxaq, Paola, Santa Lucija, Tarxien, part of Marsa (4th) and Zebbug, Dingli, Mgarr, Mtarfa and Rabat (7th district).

Local council elections will also be held in 23 localities today; a total of 6,825 voting documents, 7.3 per cent were not collected.

Meanwhile, voting started yesterday morning, when assistant electoral commissioners (just over 500) cast their votes at the Naxxar counting hall.

Eligible voters living abroad

An Air Malta spokesman told The Malta Independent yesterday that it had received 3,200 requests from people wanting to benefit from the government’s scheme, by means of which flights for eligible voters cost e35.

Naturally, this system certainly allows for some abuse, as eligible voters not intending to cast their vote today might have still taken the opportunity to get a cheap flight to spend a weekend in Malta.

On the other hand, it was more difficult for eligible voters who wanted to fly in for the weekend with their non-Maltese spouses.

Sources told this newspaper that non-Maltese spouses of eligible voters were initially asked to pay e1,000 to accompany their partners for the election weekend and after they complained that this was far too expensive, Air Malta cut the price by half.

Asked about this matter, Air Malta said the scheme applied only to eligible voters and their dependents.

“The spouses of eligible voters did not qualify under the scheme and the prices given to them were those available on the reservations system at the time of booking,” said the spokesman.

He said the airline made sure the demand was met and 12 extra flights were included over and above the normal schedule to the UK, Ireland, Belgium and Luxembourg.

A total of 600 bookings were made from the Benelux area, 1,750 from the UK, 175 from Germany, 375 from Italy and 300 from other countries.

The national airline set up a specific section that handled and processed the various booking requests received, further confirming Air Malta’s social obligations towards the country and its people, said the spokesman.

Today’s general election will be based on the electoral amendments to the Constitution, which Parliament agreed upon last September.

The amendments put a lot of weight on first-count votes as seat allocation in Parliament will be based on these votes. While the number of seats has to remain odd, it can go over the current 65.

They stipulate that if candidates from only two political parties are elected, but one of the parties is under-represented, this will be balanced out by means of “credits” in the form of additional seats to reflect first count votes of that party.

On the other hand, if candidates from more than two political parties are elected to Parliament and one of the parties has an absolute majority, but is still under-represented, it will be credited extra seats in a manner that reflects its votes.

Voting for the general public tomorrow will be open between 7am and 10pm.