The major challenge faced by every political party in a democratic election concerns how well it will succeed in mobilising its voters to get them "all" out and vote. Everywhere, an essential section of the political machinery is built around the methods by which contacts are maintained with these voters to ensure they will be doing their "duty".
In such a process, it is crucial to register information about who these people are and how to contact them. Trained operatives need to then keep that information updated. In a really small country like ours, techniques for getting out the vote have reached a high level of sophistication. Actually, the electoral system as it has been developed by agreement between the parties, is constructed in such a way as to allow full leeway for get-out-the-vote efforts. A party proves its organisational strength when it excels at this exercise, while a flaccid operation betrays underlying political problems.
As the get-out-the-vote effort proceeds, parties must ensure that it does not risk provoking the opposite of what it is intended for - by say, alienating voters because of its persistence.
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OVERCONFIDENCE
Electoral overconfidence has become a risk for the Labour Party in recent years. With the elimination of frequent elections, opinion surveys have become the one way by which to gauge how popular sentiment is evolving. Truly, the systems and methods by which polling research is conducted these days have reached impressive professional levels. Even so, doubts will always remain about whether survey results really capture the reality of popular feeling now and today. Such doubts have not always been misguided.
Consistently the surveys that have been done showed the PL in a dominant position. The party did well not to rely on this and has not let itself be blinded by overconfidence but ran a campaign in which every vote and every contract was given importance.
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VOTING FROM ABROAD
With time, two developments have stood out regarding the votes of Maltese living abroad. Firstly, there is agreement that these Maltese citizens should have their right to vote in general elections safeguarded. And secondly, that effective action should be taken to ensure they can exercise their right to vote. Up to now, the arrangements about this have been the allocation of subsidies on the air travel tickets needed to travel to Malta to vote. It's a clumsy method, does not have at all a "universal" reach and costs much money.
The ideal arrangement would be for Maltese living abroad to be able to vote from where they live. In the US, plus other countries, postal voting is possible. But this always gave rise to criticism, lately and in a big way from US President Trump. For Malta, it would surely create massive complications. Perhaps the same would be the case with voting from embassies.
So then, why not vote via the internet? We wouldn't be inventing the wheel - just following Estonia's example. Since 2005, that country has been organising its elections via the internet, for those living abroad as well as for local residents.