A total of 8,200 voting documents for the general elections remained uncollected until yesterday, commission officials said this morning.

That is a fraction of the 333,006 voting documents printed for Saturday's election. Five years ago 6,300 documents were uncollected until Wednesday.

The officials said that 1,200 documents were collected from the commission's offices on Monday and  664 on Tuesday.

The collection of documents continues until tomorrow at midnight from the Electoral Commission's Office in Valletta.

In contrast, 19,041 voting documents for the local council elections in half of Malta's localities, also being held on Saturday, remain undistributed by the police, meaning that many people intend to vote in the general election, but not their local one.

There will be 116 polling stations and 700 polling boxes on Saturday. Most of the polling stations are in converted classrooms, but some are in local council offices or parish centres.

The elections will be overseen by 4,850 assistant electoral commissioners and the counting will be made by 1,293 staff, who have been receiving their briefing at Naxxar counting hall.

A total of 269 candidates will vie for the 65 parliamentary seats.

The commission officials said they would close on eye on having every establishment within 50metres of  polling stations closed down on Saturday. Only political party clubs within that radius will be closed. However the police can intervene to close down a place if they feel the need.

Shop owners, in particular, had complained that forcing them to close down because their shops were near polling stations caused them financial damages.

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