People who turn 18 up to a day before an election will still be eligible to vote, according to a Bill to amend the General Elections Act that will be given a first reading on Monday.

Today, to be able to vote, people have to be 18 when the Electoral Register is published, either in April or in October.

If someone turns 18 in May they would not be able to vote in an election held as late as September as they would have missed the April register. The Bill would provide for a rolling Electoral Register to rectify the problem, sources said.

The political parties had agreed on this notion in principle after it was floated by Nationalist Party deputy leader Tonio Borg.

Labour at the time said it had always favoured “a rolling register”. The party had objected to the absence of nearly 3,000 18-year-olds from the register in the divorce referendum. The youngsters were disenfranchised for the May 2011 poll after the Electoral Commission decided to base the referendum on the previous October’s Electoral Register instead of the one that had to be published in April.

Alternattiva Demokratika had said Malta would be simply joining the majority of European countries where voting rights were tied to the attainment of majority age.

The first reading of the Bill, a formality, authorises the government to publish the Bill in the Government Gazette.

The Bill is also expected to introduce provisions to allow voting to take place in hospitals with a ballot box from each district taken to hospitals so that patients can vote there.

The House gave a first reading to a Bill on Cohabitation this week. A first reading for a Bill on party funding is expected in the coming days.