Voting in the European Parliament elections kicked off today with early voting by residents of old people's homes. Voting is taking place in homes which host more than 50 residents.

People who will be abroad next Saturday - the actual polling day - may also vote today at the counting hall in Naxxar.

In all, just over 6,000 are eligible to vote today.

Today is also the last day when eligible voters may collect their voting document from their locality's police station or, where there is no police station, the local council offices.

32,000 voting documents remain uncollected so far, 9% of the total. Collection time today has been extended to 10pm.

During the door-to-door distribution of votes, the locality with the largest chunk of undelivered votes was the Gozitan village of Żebbuġ, where more than 37 per cent of documents could not be handed over.

This was followed by St Paul’s Bay, with 33 per cent of voting documents undelivered, Valletta – 27 per cent, St Julian’s – 26 per cent and Għarb – 26 per cent.

In 2009, when the last European Parliament elections were held, 15,862 voting documents remained uncollected up to the eve of polling day. This figure had risen from 10,100 for the 2004 election, the first time the Maltese public had voted to elect its representatives in the European Parliament.

There are 342,278 people eligible to vote in this year's elections.