24,352 referendum voting documents remain uncollected

Malta will vote in the island’s seventh referendum on 11 April to decide on whether it wants to abrogate the government’s derogation from the EU ban on spring hunting.

A total of 338,447 voters are eligible to vote, of which a simple majority of 169,224 must cast their vote for the plebiscite to be legally valid.

The referendum is decided by a simple majority of 50 per cent of valid votes cast, plus one.

Of the total voters, 171,035 are women and 167,412 are men.

Up until Tuesday evening, 24,352 votes for the referendum remained uncollected, while 35,305 voting documents for the local council elections were also uncollected.

All voting documents must now be collecting from the counting complex at the Naxxar counting hall, at the former trade fair grounds.

Voting for a round of 34 local councils, half of the island’s 68, will also take place on 11 April, but counting will take place on 18 April – a week after the referendum votes are counted. Suffrage for local elections this year has been extended to voters aged 16-18, adding 4,384 Maltese nationals and 101 non-Maltese, EU nationals to the register.

Sorting of votes for the referendum will start early at 9am on Sunday 12 April. Delegates from the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ camps have been granted full access to inspect the counting process, but they are not at law allowed to appoint monitors during the voting process since they are not political parties represented in parliament.

The Electoral Commission today also told the press that a genuine error had occurred when a resident from the Sa Maison home for the elderly cast his vote during the advance voting for elderly residents.

“We established a cut-off period for residents of homes of the elderly and hospital patients, which meant only people resident in these institutions up until Monday at 6am could vote in this advance round of voting. In this case, this person was no longer eligible for this voting round but had to vote in his locality. However, his vote has been recorded and he cannot vote any longer,” a spokesperson for the Commission said.

Five assistant electoral commissioners who were suspended due to the mishap will no longer be involved in the counting process, the Commission said.

The Commission also warned voters who had not passed on voting documents collected at home, to their elderly relatives who may be living in an institution, to give this vote to the rightful bearer. “Otherwise we will send the police over to each house to ensure that the voter is given his voting document,” the Commission said.