341,856 people registered to vote tomorrow

● Counting to start at 10am on Sunday

341,856 registered voters are eligible to vote in this general election, Electoral Commission chairman Joseph Church told members of the press earlier this week. 169,352 are men and 171,904 are women.

Mr Church said that until Tuesday evening, 10,361 eligible voters had not yet picked up their voting document and voters had until midnight yesterday to collect it.

Voting took place yesterday at all hospitals: Mater Dei, Karen Grech, St Luke’s, Mount Carmel and Gozo General Hospital.

Last Saturday 4,173 cast their vote since they will be abroad tomorrow. Early voting also took place at St Vincent de Paule home for the elderly, where 671 out of 860 eligible voters cast their preference. Other elderly people in homes also voted, for a total of 2,713 out of 4,250 eligible voters.

In this election 3,570 Assistant Commissioners and other helping staff will be involved in the electoral process.

The voting on Saturday will be from 7am to 10pm. The boxes sealed after the closure of the voting process will be taken to the Naxxar counting hall. Once the boxes arrive, they will be opened and votes will be sorted and turned face down.

Mr Church said the counting of the votes starts on Sunday at 10am.

Louis Fsadni, an election expert within the commission, said that various measures have been taken to reduce the possibility of mistakes during the counting process. Supervisors and counting agents will be constantly monitored by CCTV cameras. The equipment will also be able to record the footage taken live.

Mr Fsadni said that polling booths in this election are made of cardboard and will allow assistant commissioners to see that voters in the booth do not take any pictures with mobile phones or any other equipment, since this is against the law.