Malta is heading to the polls today as voters across the country cast their ballots in a general election that will determine who governs the country for the next five years.

Polling stations, most of which are located in State schools across the islands, open at 7am and remain open until 10pm, as more than 350,000 voters have the right to cast their preference.

Once voting closes, ballot boxes from around the country will begin making their way under security escort to the Counting Hall in Naxxar, where the electoral process will move into its next phase.

This general election is being contested by 282 candidates across 13 electoral districts and 163 voting areas, with 356,832 people eligible to vote, including 18,622 first-time voters.  A total of 852 ballot boxes are being used nationwide.

The number of eligible voters represents a net increase of 1,767 compared to the 2022 election, when the electorate stood at 355,075.

Attention will tomorrow shift to the Naxxar Counting Hall, where thousands of ballot papers will begin to be processed on Sunday morning.

According to Chief Electoral Commissioner Joseph Camilleri, the sorting of votes is scheduled to begin at 9am on Sunday, with party agents expected to take up their positions shortly beforehand.

The counting hall is expected to be packed with election officials, counting staff, party agents, candidates, and the media, all closely following the counting process as ballot papers are sorted, verified and counted, while the nation awaits the outcome of the election.

An unofficial indication of the outcome could emerge within one to two hours of the sorting process beginning, although disputed ballots will be reviewed separately by Electoral Commission representatives together with one representative from each political party.

The Electoral Commission said that the electoral system is expected to produce a final count by around 8pm on Sunday.

Following that, the major parties will be given time to verify the figures against their own systems before the official result is announced. Political parties may nevertheless issue their own projections before the Electoral Commission's formal declaration.

Security at the Naxxar Counting Hall will be provided by members of the police force and the Armed Forces of Malta, both inside and outside the complex, while more than 6,000 assistants and counting staff have been deployed to oversee the electoral process nationwide.

A week ago, voters who were unable to cast their ballot today had already begun taking part in the electoral process through early voting.

The Electoral Commission said that 14,818 of the 16,402 people registered for early voting cast their ballot, resulting in a turnout of 90.34%.

Last Tuesday, Assistant Electoral Commissioners and Police Officers who will be carrying out duties on election day and are therefore unable to vote on the day of the general election itself, cast their vote. More than 96% (6,561 out of 6,821 eligible early voters) cast their vote.

Last Thursday, patients at Mater Dei Hospital, Mount Carmel Hospital, Gozo General Hospital, Sir Anthony Mamo Oncology Centre and Karin Grech Hospital cast their vote, with a voter turnout reaching 83.64%, 956 votes out of 1,143 registered voters.

Malta is divided into 13 electoral districts, with five MPs elected from each district through the single transferable vote system.

This means that, at the end of the initial count, 65 MPs are elected to Parliament.

However, the final size of Parliament can increase through constitutional mechanisms designed to ensure proportionality between votes obtained and seats won, as well as through the gender corrective mechanism, which seeks to improve gender balance among elected MPs.

As a result, the number of MPs sitting in Parliament is often higher than the original 65 elected through the districts.

During the last legislature, Parliament was composed of 79 MPs - the highest number in Malta's history - after additional seats were allocated through the proportionality and gender-corrective mechanisms.

The final composition of the next Parliament will only be known once the election result is confirmed and any additional seats due under these mechanisms are calculated.

Candidates who are elected on two districts will concede one of their seats and casual elections held among unelected candidates to replace them.