(Adds PL offer)
The European Commission Representation and the European Parliament Office in Malta have written to the Electoral Commission asking it to reinstate non-Maltese EU nationals who have been struck off the Electoral Register.
The leader of Alternattiva Demokratika, Arnold Cassola, said earlier this week that 960 EU citizens resident in Malta had been struck off the register.
In their joint letter, the Representation and the EP Office said it had become clear that a number of EU citizens resident in Malta who voted in the European Parliament elections in 2004 and had every intention to vote again on June 6 had unexpectedly been excluded from the register.
"It appears that adverts placed by the Electoral Commission in the last months in the local press notifying the procedure for non-Maltese EU citizens to register seem not to have been clear or prominent enough. In particular, the message that persons on the 2004 register needed to re-register was not understood."
They said that they were aware that the Electoral Commission considered the European Union Electoral Register as a stand-alone register that expired after each EP election and had to be built anew at the next election.
Nevertheless, the fact that the European Union electoral register had been republished in full by the Electoral Commission every six months until October 2008 had helped give bona fide voters the impression that their name would remain on the register also for the coming EP elections.
"This impression is quite understandable since this is indeed the practice with the Maltese Electoral Register, the letter says.
They said that participation int he register was a crucial political right and fundamental tenet of European citizenshop which could nto be denied because of a simple miscommunication.
Dr Julian Vassallo,for the EP Office, and Dr Joanna Drake for the Representation, asked why these EU citizens were not personally notified of the intention of the Electoral Commission to exclude them from the European Union electoral register.
They also called on the Electoral Commission to do all it could to facilitate the procedures for these people to regain their right to vote.
AD this afternoon thanked Dr Drake and Dr Vassallo for heeding its call and said that their intervention to safeguard the basic democratic rights of the people was to be lauded.
"Your intervention proves us at AD right for having always and consistently wanted our country to join the EU. The EU institutions are proving to be a shield for citizens in Malta against the obstacles put by Maltese bureaucracy against the basic right of people to vote."
The Labour Party in another statement said it was offering its services to those EU nationals wishing to be reinstated on the register.
It invited those who needed help to contact the elections office at party headquarters, Hamrun.