Speaker again calls for updated House voting procedure

The Speaker has again urged both sides of the House of Representatives to agree on an updated procedure for voting in the House in order to remove the doubts raised during the vote on the power station extension on May 6.

Michael Frendo said his appeals so far had not yielded any results. The Chair felt that it was imperative that an electronic voting system was introduced in the House, as was the case in many Parliaments abroad.

Until that happened, it was 'imperative, important and urgent' for the two sides to agree on a procedure for clarifications when a vote was in doubt, and how to regulate a situation when a Member made a genuine mistake while voting.

In the absence of an electronic voting system, the two sides also needed to agree on the best system to be adopted when MPs was asked to declare their vote.

Dr Frendo made his comments in a ruling following a request by Labour MP Justyne Caruana.

During the power station debate, Minister Tonio Borg said that Dr Caruana had been heard voting against the opposition motion. Dr Caruana strenuously denied the claim and requested the Chair to explain why the Clerk had not asked her to clarify her vote, if there was any doubt.

The Speaker confirmed that the Clerk had not paused after calling Dr Caruana and had not requested a confirmation of the vote because at that stage, the Clerk had not understood Dr Caruana to have voted against the motion.

Dr Frendo said the Chair was seriously concerned about the voting procedure adopted to date since it had not been able to conclude from the recordings how Dr Caruana and other MPs had voted, hence the need for a new system.