Several people who are flying down to Malta on government-sponsored flights tonight and tomorrow will be too late to pick up their voting documents so will not be able to vote in Saturday’s referendum.

Voters who contacted this newspaper said they had booked flights on Air Malta to be able to participate in the referendum and local council elections but had not yet collected their voting documents.

One voter said his plane would be landing at about 11.30pm tonight. He, had not collected his documents and they were not given to his parents when they tried to collect them on his behalf.

“I didn’t know that I wouldn’t make it to pick up my voting documents in time. Now I am coming down to Malta for virtually nothing, as I can’t participate in the referendum or the local council election,” Chris Gauci, 34, said.

Meanwhile, John Attard, 28, said he too would be flying down to vote on Saturday but had no idea he needed to collect his voting documents by midnight today.

The government subsidises flights for voters living abroad for every national vote held. A return flight for this week’s poll costs around €70, with the government forking out the rest of the standard fare set by the national airline.

Air Malta yesterday said it had received a total of 1,700 reservations for the cheap voter flights. It did not disclose how many of them would be landing after the midnight closing time.

Sources close to the anti-spring hunting campaign said they had been inundated with messages from people flying in after the deadline and unable to collect their documents.

The sources said members of the campaign had reached out to the authorities in a bid to find a solution. However, this had proved unsuccessful.

Electoral Commissioner Joe Church yesterday said the regulations for document collection were clear and those arriving after the deadline simply would not be given their documents. Around 24,000 voting documents remained to be collected yesterday.

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