Just 15 months after voting in a nail biting general election, Malta goes to the polls again today in the second European Parliament election since membership in 2004.
Local elections will also be held in 23 localities, representing one third of all voters.
The political parties wrapped up their campaigns on Thursday with television broadcasts that ran until midnight, exhorting voters to pick up their voting document.
Yesterday was supposed to be a day of reflection for the electorate, even though candidates continued campaigning in subtle or not so subtle ways.
By midnight on Thursday, 15,862 voting documents for the EP election remained uncollected, representing 4.9 per cent of registered voters.
Voter apathy was up from the EP elections held five years ago when 10,149 voting documents remained uncollected.
An analysis by electoral districts shows that the highest number of uncollected documents was in the Nationalist Party-leaning northern districts (eight to 13) where 10,466 voting documents were left on the shelf at the Electoral Commission's office in Valletta.
With 2,884 unclaimed votes, the 12th district, which includes St Paul's Bay and Naxxar, had the highest number of uninterested voters followed by the 10th (Sliema) with 2,124 unclaimed votes.
The number of uncollected documents in the southern Labour-leaning districts (one to seven) was 5,396.
The geographical distribution of unclaimed votes seems to have followed the same pattern as that of last year's general election, when voter abstention was higher in the north. For the local elections, a total of 8,830 voting documents were uncollected.
With 2,435 unclaimed votes, almost 19 per cent of registered voters, Sliema tops the chart for voter apathy.
In the Gozitan locality of Gharb 16 per cent of registered voters did not bother to pick up their vote.
Polling stations will today open between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. The Electoral Commission said voters who were going abroad today would be allowed to skip the queue if they presented their travel ticket to the police officers on duty.
ksansone@timesofmalta.com