The stay at home protest vote: will 2022 deliver a historically low turnout?

The stay at home protest vote in 2022 may yet be a stronger factor political parties will have to contend with in the years ahead.

Voting is not compulsory in Malta and yet it remains the democratic country with the highest general election turnouts.

Maltese love voting but the turnout at elections has been nudging down over the past two decades and surveys suggest the 2022 election will be no different.

The largest drop was witnessed between the 2003 and 2008 general elections, and even here, the difference in turnout was a mere 2.4 points.

In the hotly contested 2003 election, which determined the issue of EU membership, 95.7% of eligible voters cast their vote. Five years later, this dropped to 93.3%.

In 2013, the turnout remained relatively stable at 93% but in 2017, this dropped to 92.1%, establishing a new record low for Malta since 1971.

Yet, the election on 26 March is likely to produce a new record. MaltaToday’s rolling survey projected that the share of valid votes cast would be 86.9% as of Friday. This works out at a turnout of around 88.1%, a full four points less than the last election.

Valid votes cast are the basis on which an election is determined since invalid votes are ignored.

In 2017, while 92.1% of eligible voters went out to vote, only 90.9% of eligible voters cast a valid vote.

The share of invalid votes since 2003 has averaged at around 1.2 points. If this is replicated, the survey numbers suggest that in 2022 the turnout would be in the region of 88%.

The MaltaToday survey has shown an improvement in the turnout figure since the start of the electoral campaign, suggesting that the political parties’ get-out-the-vote efforts are reaping some results.

On 27 February, the MaltaToday survey projected the share of valid votes at 84% (estimated turnout of 85.2%), rising to 86.9% (turnout of 88.1%) four weeks later.

However, the numbers still suggest a lower turnout than five years ago and the first sign of what we could expect came on Saturday when early voting was possible for those who cannot vote on 26 March.

According to the Electoral Commission, from 9,658 voters eligible to vote early, 8,224 cast their vote on Saturday. This equates to 85.2%, almost six points less than five years ago when the turnout for early voters stood at 91%.

Another determining factor will be the amount of uncollected voting documents after the midnight deadline on Thursday expires.

Eligible voters need their voting document to exercise their right to vote and from today until Thursday these can only picked up in person from the Naxxar counting hall and the Electoral Commission’s office in Victoria.

Undoubtedly, the political parties will be upping their efforts over the next four days to convince people to go and pick up their voting document.

But even if they are successful, there is no guarantee that reluctant voters will actually head to the polling booths on Saturday.