More are deciding to vote as electoral campaigns intensify

Voter abstention has continued the downward trend it started a week ago with the latest MaltaToday rolling survey putting the share of valid votes at 86.4%.

The accumulated results as at 8pm on Wednesday 9 March show a marginal improvement of 0.3 points in the share of valid votes as the electoral campaigns intensify.

The results put the Labour Party at 53.2%, an increase of 0.2 points, and the PN at 44.8%, unchanged from the previous day. Third parties collectively registered 2.2%.

Based on a sample of 1,609 respondents, the gap between the two major parties now stands at 25,738 votes.

The share of valid votes still remains short of the share of valid votes cast in the 2017 general election – 90.9%.

Valid votes cast is not the turnout, which stood at 92.1% in the last election, but the basis on which victory in an election is determined.

As things stand, a higher turnout could mean a victory with a larger margin for the PL, which could explain why the party has been harping on the importance of people going out to vote.

Robert Abela’s trust rating increased to 43.7% from 43% a day earlier, while Bernard Grech’s dropped to 30% from 30.3%. The share of those who trust no one or are unsure stood at 26.4%.

All changes are well within the margin of error of 2.4%, signalling no major shifts either way.

What we do

A base survey with a sample size of 597 was released on Sunday 27 February. This survey was carried out between 21 and 26 February.

Polling will continue everyday between Monday and Friday. The daily tallies will boost the sample size in this rolling survey and enable us to re-calculate the data on progressively larger samples. Results from the last polling day on Friday will be published in the print edition on Sunday.

Care is taken to ensure that daily samples are as representative as they can be of the general population, reflecting gender, age, regional distribution and past voting patterns.

The results based on the accumulated tally comprising the previous day’s results are published at 8:30am on the MaltaToday home page.