The fate of spring hunting will be known on Sunday in what is expected to be a speedy referendum vote-sorting process at the Naxxar counting hall.
Counting agents will start slotting votes in the Yes and No pigeonholes at 9am and a clear indication is expected to emerge 30 minutes later, according to the Electoral Commission.
The result will not be official but it will be based on sample counts taken by political party representatives who will be overseeing the process despite not having a direct interest.
Voting for the referendum will take place on Saturday between 7am and 10pm with the turnout figure determining whether the result is valid or not. Voters in half of the country will also be electing their local council representatives.
The spring hunting referendum is the seventh referendum in 145 years but the first instigated by voters to abolish a law. To be valid, it requires at least half of eligible voters to cast their ballot.
The referendum question on the ballot sheet will be in Maltese and English with voters being asked to answer Yes or No.
Yes voters – in favour of spring hunting – will have to mark the yellow box while No voters – against spring hunting – will mark the brown box.
Today is the last day of campaigning and the last chance for voting documents to be collected up from the Naxxar counting hall. Voters have until midnight to personally pick up their voting document.
Chief Electoral Commissioner Joseph Church said yesterday that, until Tuesday night, 24,352 voting documents for the referendum remained uncollected.
Another 34,305 voting documents for the local elections also remained, half of which belong to foreign EU nationals.
Vote counting for the local election will be held a week later.
Mr Church said there would be 858 counting staff for the referendum process and 1,081 for the local elections.
Voting will take place today at four hospitals for voters who were listed as patients until Monday evening. Voters who have been discharged since then will have to vote at the hospital while those who were admitted after the deadline will vote on Saturday in their hometown.
Mr Church appealed to relatives in possession of patients’ voting documents to deliver them to their next of kin.
“Patients will not be able to vote unless they have a voting document. I appeal to relatives to deliver the document and avoid us having to send over a police officer to reclaim the document and have it delivered to its rightful owner.”
Tomorrow, it will be the turn of assistant electoral commissioners to vote.
kurt.sansone@timesofmalta.com