With our single transferrable voting system, we are unique in Malta in that we have one of the most complicated vote counting processes on the face of the Earth. That process takes days on end and, at times, the counting of votes is the cause of bitter dispute. In fact, the Nationalist and Labour parties are still battling it out in court over vote-counting discrepancies from the March 2013 election.

The relatively recent advent of the rolling electoral register, which made those turning 18 years of age the very day before an election eligible to vote, was long-awaited and much needed. That move eliminated this disenfranchisement that had affected thousands of people in the past when those coming of age before an election needed to have their names included on the twice-yearly elector register – in April and October − in time for the election, or forfeit their right to vote for another five years.

The move was undoubtedly one in the right direction and thanks to cross-party agreement before Parliament was last dissolved, it was put in place in time for the last general election. As a result, the number of young, first time voters was greatly increased.

While this was undoubtedly a step in the right direction, there are a number of ways in which the entire process could be improved, but the implementation of more modern ways and means of choosing the people to lead the country every five years is, at the end of the day, down to the political parties that have so much vested in the current modus operandi that there is an obvious resistance to change. Here are a few suggestions. Voting documents: Every time polling season rolls around, police officers pay visits to each and every household in the country to deliver voting documents to each and every voter, more than once in many instances. Now that our identity cards are all equipped with computerised chips containing all our particulars, there is, in reality, very little reason why our ID cards cannot be scanned at polling centres, after which we can be ushered into our polling booths.

Electronic counting: If the country’s voting process were to be dragged, perhaps kicking and screaming, into the 21st century, and electronic voting were to be introduced, our incredibly laborious and lengthy vote counting process would be both shortened and simplified. It would also remove much of the anxiety that typifies those days and hours as votes are transferred down through the candidates’ ranks in what is, truth be told, an excruciating process. Although, it must be conceded that many would sorely miss the traditional Perspex banging at counting halls.

Electronic voting: Similarly, the introduction of electronic voting in polling booths would also greatly simplify the process. An electronic voting system could be tested with a pilot system run with perhaps the elderly or the disabled for starters and then, if successful, it could be extended to the electorate at large.

Day of silence: It is high time to that the ridiculous law on the so-called day of silence is repealed. In this day and age, this law is as useful as a chocolate teapot. There may be a valid argument for political parties to cease and desist at least on Election Day but this should no longer be applicable to the traditional and new media – it is an insult to the electorate’s intelligence.

More than that, the archaic regulation is counterproductive to both the tenets of media pluralism as well as to the interests of a proper democratically-informed debate in the final hours of any campaign.

In today’s age of instantaneous information, it is time that the country’s policy toward the period of silence is wiped from the statute books and sent into the annals of history where it belongs. It is incomprehensible, for example, that election-related articles and opinion pieces uploaded to our website on the pre-election Thursday, the day before the period of reflection becomes effective, are still there for anyone to access and read but that anything actually uploaded after midnight on that becomes illegal.

The social media and blogs are more than rife with political comment. This is absolutely ridiculous in today’s near-completely connected world, connectivity that all political parties endorse, embrace and promote so wholeheartedly.

Our political parties should, for a change, get together and devise ways and means of modernising our election system. This would, however, require a level of maturity that seems to be sorely lacking today. But if they can do that, for starters, they just might, after all, be able to begin converging on other issues of national importance.