Counting of votes to start at 10am on Sunday

The counting of votes cast in Saturday’s general election will start to be counted at 10am on Sunday, the chairman of the Electoral Commission said today.

Joseph Church, who was addressing a press conference, said that voting on Saturday will be from 7am to 10pm, after which the ballot boxes will be taken to the Naxxar counting hall. There, they will be opened and the votes sorted and turned face down.

The votes will start to be counted at 10am on Sunday, he said.

Church said that there were 341,856 registered voters – 169,352 men and 171,904 women – eligible to vote in Saturday’s election.

He said that patients at Mater Dei, Karen Grech, St Luke’s, Mount Carmel and Gozo hospitals will be voting on Thursday.

671 of 860 eligible voters among residents of St Vincent de Paul have already cast their vote, as have a further 2,713 elderly persons out of 4,250 eligible voters residing in old people’s homes.

A further 4,173, who will be abroad on Saturday, cast their preference last Saturday.

Church said that 3,570 Assistant Commissioners and other helping staff will be involved in the electoral process this year.

Louis Fsadni, an election expert within the commission, said that various measures had been taken to minimise the chance of mistakes during the counting process. Supervisors and counting agents will be constantly monitored by cctv cameras, with all live feeds being recorded.

Fsadni said that polling booths in this election were made of cardboard and will allow assistant commissioners to verify that voters in the booth do not take any pictures with mobile phones or any other device.