The Electoral Commission said Friday that 14,473 voting documents were not collected, a four per cent cut from the total of 354,896 registered voters.
This is nearly double the 8,372 voting documents not collected in the last election in 2017, a 2.44% share.
The district with the most uncollected votes is the 12th, followed by the 10th and the 13th. The district with the least number of uncollected votes is the sixth.
Voting will take place between 7am and 10 pm Saturday across 116 voting centres, Chief Electoral Commissioner Joseph Camilleri said during a press conference held at the counting hall in Naxxar.
There will be six centres in Malta that will be drive-through voting centres for Covid positive people and those in quarantine, and one such centre in Gozo. A separate centre is also being set up at Mater Dei Hospital for people who are Covid-positive there.
The people allowed to vote at these centres are according to a list the Superintendence of Public Health is keeping updated until tonight for the Commission. As of Friday afternoon, 4,200 voters will vote at these Covid voting stations. These are people who were found to be Covid positive or have been in quarantine since 19 March until Friday night.
The Commission is making contact with those who are on this list in case they require transportation.
While at any voting station, people will need to wear their masks, but they may be asked to remove their mask for the officials to verify their identity. This is not mandatory, and will be at the discretion of the assistant commissioners and the party representatives at the stations.
The Commission reminds the public that on voting day, persons who are over 75 years and those in stretchers from hospital and elderly people's institutions will be allowed to skip queues. Persons aged between 60 and 75 years old, shall be allowed to jump the queue from 1 pm to 5 pm. All other persons who are sick and unable to wait in the queue must present a medical certificate that has been issued in order to avoid the queue, and this facility would be permitted after 1 pm. Persons presenting a special identity card issued by the National Commission for Persons with Disability would be granted the same facility without the need of a medical certificate.
After the polling stations close at 10pm, the boxes will be reconciled and sent to the counting hall in Naxxar.
The number of uncollected votes, by % when compared to the number of registered voters on each district.
The boxes will then again be reconciled and the boxes will be opened and organised face down into other boxes at the counting desks. A separate area has been set up for those voting documents coming from Covid stations, where vote counting officials will wear full PPE gear.
It is estimated that all the face down votes will start being turned over at 9am on Sunday. Party agents on the other side of the perspex will be able to view every vote and identify any dubious ones. Once a box is completed, the votes will be passed on for scanning. Any votes which the system finds issue with and votes flagged as dubious will then be evaluated by officials. After the process ends and dubious votes are decided upon, the Electoral Commission will issue a provisional result of the whole district to the parties who then have up to four hours to check them. After this stage, the official result will be made public.
After this process ends and the final result is known, the parties will then take decisions regarding casual elections required for districts dropped by those candidates elected from two. Casual elections will then take place at a later date. After this, the gender balance mechanism will kick in, however there is an ongoing court case on this mechanism that could affect it.
It is believed that the official result could be made public on Sunday evening.
As per usual, the result of the election will likely be known long before the final official result is published given the party agents keeping track.