Thursday, 4th June 2009
Over 19,000 votes still uncollected
Preliminary results expected on Sunday afternoon
A billboard for the upcoming European parliamentary elections in front of EU headquarters in the centre of Brussels, yesterday.
Six per cent of the voting documents for Saturday's European Parliament election have not yet been collected, almost double that of 2004.
Of the 320,330 Maltese and 2,103 foreign voters, 303,134 votes were collected and delivered, leaving 19,301 uncollected, according to Chief Electoral Commissioner Edward Gatt.
In the first EP elections in 2004, 10,134 of the 304,283 eligible votes were not collected. Although there are more eligible voters this time, six per cent of the documents were still unclaimed when compared to 3.3 per cent in 2004.
A total 7,508 votes remain uncollected in the case of the local council elections where 132,859 documents were issued.
Voters have until today at midnight to pick up their documents from the Electoral Commission, in Valletta. The majority of the uncollected documents belong to residents of the northern part of Malta.
During last Saturday's early voting, 1,044 of 1,072 eligible people cast their vote for the EP election and 450 out of 463 cast their vote for the local council election.
Voting on Saturday takes place between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. When the polls close, the boxes will be taken to Naxxar and counting will start on Sunday at noon. Counting will not start earlier in order to ensure that no results are issued before the voting closes in the rest of the EU countries.
Preliminary results showing which political party won the majority of the five seats up for grabs, and the sixth seat, which will be confirmed once the Lisbon Treaty comes into force, are expected on Sunday afternoon.
The official results with the final votes are likely to be announced on Tuesday.
Last week's early voting took place for the first time after a law was passed to allow eligible voters who declare they will be away on polling day during general, local or European Parliament elections to vote the previous Saturday. The law followed a call by the Malta Olympic Committee to make arrangements for the Maltese contingent taking part in the Small Nations Games in Cyprus to be able to vote before their departure.
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Comments
What difference will it make when it comes to a vote whether we get six representatives instead of five? Why don’t the local politicians enlighten us on what Malta stands to gain besides providing someone with another comfortable seat?
If the Lisbon Treaty gets ratified we risk governance by federal law from an extremely powerful body whose major representations belong to the big euro-nations. These do not even realize the exceptional idiosyncrasies and circumstances that one has to consider when taking into account the impact of blanket legislation on a small island state. It is true that a lot of effort is being made by local representatives to highlight and rectify such instances but it has always proved an uphill task.
I believe that this point is another major contributing factor resulting in disenchantment and indifference being shown by people not wanting to vote.
So how can Airmalta and The Electoral Commission explain the fact that there are voters coming from abroad in the early hours of Friday 5th June, they are coming with just Eur 35 in order to vote when they can't even collect their voting document, as the closing time is Thursday until midnight ????
Is anyone responsible for this as afterall the subsidised airline ticket is paid from our taxes.
Can anyone at least make sure that whoever is coming to Malta (with this special offer) collect his voting document on time
GOD FORBID had we not joined EU ( with all its good and bad).
do you realise what you are saying!??!
you even had the Icelandic PM spelling it out clearly to you!! who more do you need to hear to stop this line of thinking forever??
you are probably one of the few few left who do not admit ( deep down at least) that your reasoning is wrong!! it is so clear!!