Except for the hanging 12th and 13th districts, the electoral boundaries are set. The Electoral Commission is in duty bound to allocate voters into groups of about 450-500 voters called ballot boxes.

Up to now, this process has been based on allocating voters on the basis of street names in alphabetical order, meaning that street AA may be in the north and street AB may be in the south of the same locality.

The commission could make a better allocation using the Geographical Information System (GIS), as the voters of a ballot box would be clustered in the same neighbourhood. This process is used widely in the US, where voters' clusters are called precincts and in many states (if not all) this is done through GIS software.

The information collected by party agents during the counting of votes would have a higher value as this data could be used more scientifically and even for social/demographic research.

I hope the commission will consider this suggestion and, if needed, get some assistance from the US Ambassador in Malta, who is very prepared to help our country.

Finally, I would like to make a strong request to the commission to issue its own regulations to facilitate the voting in secrecy of blind persons. The General Elections Act empowers the Electoral Commission thus:

3. (1) The commission may make regulations not inconsistent with or repugnant to, the provisions of this Act, for prescribing any form or procedure for which no express procedure is contained in this Act, for amending the forms contained in the schedules to this Act and, generally, for carrying the provisions of this Act into effect.

The Prime Minister shall upon the publication of such regulations lay the same upon the table of the House.