Nationalist MP Beppe Fenech Adami yesterday revealed he had proposed a rolling electoral register during a Parliamentary select committee, which would have resolved the recent dispute over the 2,800 young people ineligible to vote in the divorce referendum next month.
Such a system would have provided for a continuous update of the electoral register, keeping track of those who would have turned 18 until election day, Dr Fenech Adami said.
A change in the system would, of course, still have required an amendment to the law, he added.
Last week, the Electoral Commission decided it would base the May 28 referendum on the October 2010 electoral register instead of the one that will be published later this month, meaning those who turned 18 in the intervening period will not be able to vote.
Dr Fenech Adami said the Labour Party officially withdrew from the committee, and put forward a motion which automatically excluded 2,800 voters.
The Opposition walked out of the committee last year in protest over a decision taken by the Speaker in Parliament following a vote on electricity tariffs, he said.
Dr Fenech Adami added that a further proposal would have done away with the current system where voters were sometimes taken to polling stations on stretchers – by allowing patients to vote in hospital.
In a statement, Labour Party spokesman Michael Falzon said there was agreement on the proposal to have a rolling register as well as other proposals to make it easier for eligible voters to exercise their right to vote.
He said the PN, however, had opposed various Labour proposals, particularly on voting at St Vincent de Paul home for the elderly, which would have made it easier for residents to vote.
Dr Falzon said the government had killed off the select committee by not convening meetings for many months.
Alternattiva Demokratika yesterday said Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi could have found a solution to the issue, the same way he did in the 2009 European Parliament elections when the Electoral Commission had amended its register over a weekend.
Shortly before the EP elections, Dr Gonzi had insisted with the Electoral Commission that 1,900 foreigners living in Malta should be included in the register, AD spokesman Arnold Cassola said.