Alarm clocks went off at ungodly hours yesterday morning as voters flocked to polling stations first thing in the morning.

Stations in many parts of the island, particularly in the south, struggled to cope with the flurry of early voters, with delays of up to three hours reported in some localities.

By the Electoral Commission’s reckoning, a shade under half the electorate had cast their vote by 2pm, with eight hours to go before voting closed at 10pm.

Early voting was especially prevalent in the fourth, fifth and sixth districts, with 55 per cent of the fourth district electorate and 53 per cent in the other two having cast their vote by lunchtime.

Voters in the second and third districts were the least zealous of the bunch, with ‘just’ 45 and 44 per cent of the electorate in those respective districts having cast their ballot by 2 pm.

In Żejtun, voting took on the semblance of an Apple product launch, with queues beginning at 5.30am – an hour-and-a-half before voting began – and several people forced to wait several hours to cast their vote.

Even at midday, people crowded outside Żejtun’s girls’ junior lyceum, anxiously waiting for supervising police officers to call out their booth number and usher them in.

“It’s an absolute disgrace,” one man told The Times as he exited the voting station. “I arrived at 8.30am thinking it would take all of five minutes, but instead I’ve spent three hours standing in the sun.” Another woman said she had given up in disgust. “I’ll come back later this evening. But if I find this sort of craziness then, I’m going back home. They can keep their vote,” she said.

Although Żejtun seemed especially problematic, there were reports of similar delays in Cospicua, Paola and Marsa – all Labour strongholds.

“I voted first thing in the morning,” a Paola local said as she kept a watchful eye on her daughter in the playground. “Why? Because Joseph asked us to.” Labour leader Joseph Muscat had repeatedly called on PL supporters to vote early in the day.

But by the afternoon the stream of voters in the latter two localities had slowed down to a trickle, and were it not for the steel barricades marking the 50-metre boundary limit and coterie of police officers milling around polling stations, a tourist would have been hard-pressed to realise an election was under way at all.

A policeman at Pembroke polling station expected a second wave of voters at around 7pm, as citizens swapped Bibles for ballot papers.

“It’ll be busier after 6 o’clock Mass,” he said. “It always is.”

And while voters were busy running candidates and voting preferences through their mind, others saw the influx of people as an opportunity to make a quick buck.

In Qormi, one man set up shop 50 metres away from the San Ġorġ polling station and began selling slices of timpana to hungry voters, while a Mr Whippy van did fairly well selling ice creams to sun-baked Paola residents.

But it was not all euro signs and gluttony: one doughnut seller in San Ġwann said he hadn’t had a single sale all morning.

“I think all this politics has killed people’s appetites,” he said.

Turnout (unofficial figures