Voters pictured after leaving the Pembroke polling station in the last European Parliament election in 2009. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Just over 28,000 voting documents for Saturday’s European Parliament election remain uncollected.

Voters may retrieve them until midnight on Thursday.

St Paul’s Bay tops the list in terms of uncollected voting documents, with 3,962, but the explanation for this could be the large number of foreign nationals living in the locality.

In Sliema, 1,841 voting documents remained uncollected and in St Julian’s, 1,249 of those eligible to vote had not collected their documents.

A total of 1,051 people did not collect their voting documents in Marsascala and 1,045 in Mosta.

In Birkirkara, just over 1,000 have still not pick up their voting documents.

The total figure of uncollected votes dropped from the 43,200 that remained undelivered through the door-to-door service carried out by the police in all localities.

There are 342,278 people who are eligible to vote, some 20,000 more than the last election in 2009

In the 2009 European Parliament election, a total of 15,862 documents remained uncollected until the eve of the election.

This figure had risen from 10,100 for the 2004 election, the first time the country ever had held an election to elect its representatives in the Euro-pean Parliament.

According to the Electoral Commission, there are 342,278 people who are eligible to vote in Saturday’s EP elections, some 20,000 more than the last election in 2009.

Some people have already cast their votes: those who will be abroad or in hospital on polling day did so last Saturday.

Early voting will also take place on Friday for assistant elec-toral commissioners or polling place officers.

Those who have not yet collected their voting document for Saturday’s election can collect it from the Electoral Commission’s office at Evans Building in Valletta or from the Identity Card Office in Victoria.

The opening times are between 8am and 2pm and 3pm to 9pm every day this week until Thursday, the last day, when the offices will be open till midnight.

The Electoral Commission has reminded voters that the identity card or residence document is required to collect the voting document, without which no one shall be allowed to vote.