The European Parliament election ballot sheet has been resized and repositioned because there was not enough time to import more security paper.

The new voting documents, without Labour candidate Cyrus Engerer’s name, started being printed last night and will be ready after a process expected to take some 17 hours.

The reprint is expected to cost taxpayers around €150,000

Designers managed to play around with the size and shape to fit in five ballots in every sheet of security paper rather than three. Twenty-five boxes of security paper were used to print the first batch of 420,000 voting documents and there were 12 boxes left in stock.

All stock is expected to be used while the old batch will be destroyed by guillotine on Monday afternoon.

The reprint is expected to cost taxpayers around €150,000, including overtime for some 30 Government Printing Press employees, who will spend Mothers’ Day printing ballot sheets. The printing process must be concluded by Wednesday, 10 days before the election date as prescribed by law.

A new consignment of security paper ordered by the Electoral Commission is not expected to reach Malta before three or four months, posing a problem should the need arise for a local council election in a particular locality.

Mr Engerer announced he was pulling out of the EP election race after he was convicted last Thursday of circulating pornographic photos of his ex-boyfriend.