Updated 6.41pm - Added video
Voting documents for the upcoming general election are printed using ink "that can be easily wiped away," Nationalist Party deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami said today.
Dr Fenech Adami has written to the Electoral Commission asking them to halt the distribution of voting documents until problems have been resolved."If you wipe the document with methylated spirits or even scratch it with your fingernail, the print is wiped away. This can lead to big abuse," Dr Fenech Adami said at a press conference held this afternoon.
Removing a single number or letter would render the voting document invalid and disqualify a person from voting, he said.
READ: Voting documents to be distributed in coming days
"This is not something I'm announcing. We were informed of this earlier today."
Dr Fenech Adami said the Electoral Commission would be holding an urgent meeting this evening to discuss the way forward.
The PN deputy leader said that political parties had been told some weeks ago that the Electoral Commission had trouble printing voting documents on security paper and laminating them, due to problems with its lamination machines.
Parties were subsequently told that as an alternative, documents would be printed on plastic paper instead and feature "abuse-proof security features."
Distribution of voting documents is due to begin in the coming days, the Electoral Commission announced earlier today, with voters receiving the documents at their home.
Sources told Times of Malta police would begin distributing the documents tomorrow morning, with Gozitans' voting documents already on Malta's sister island.
Dr Fenech Adami said this was "yet another institutional failure" that could be pinned on Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.
He urged the Electoral Commission to do everything within its power to ease people's concerns that the election process would not be tainted.
The commission was still in time to postpone distributing the cards and laminate these cards, the PN deputy leader said.
However, if this was not done, the PN would not rule out taking "any steps necessary" itself. Dr Fenech Adami did not elaborate.
Parties satisfied with security features
In a statement released later in the day, the Electoral Commission said that following an urgent meeting, its members had unanimously agreed that security features on voting documents were up to scratch.
Dr Fenech Adami speaking at today's press conference. Photo: Jonathan Borg