Official district results will be known late on Sunday evening

Official district results will be known late on Sunday evening

Official constituency results for the Maltese general election will be published late at night, the Electoral Commissioner has told the press.

Briefing journalists on how the electoral process will proceed, Principal Electoral Commissioner Joseph Camilleri said voting on Saturday, 26 March, will start at 7am and finish at 10pm.

Seven specialised COVID-19 voting centres will be provided, six in Malta,and one in Gozo. A voting centre for Mater Dei patients who did not participate in early voting has also been set up. Around 4,200 voters are expected to turn up at COVID-19 centres.

After voting closes at 10pm, ballot boxes will start being taken to the Naxxar counting hall, at which point ballot reconciliation is carried out. The voter turnout will be known at around 2-3am.

Due to the new electronic counting system for votes, the unofficial winning party will be declared at around 10am, but candidates elected on each district will no longer be known - the traditional pigeonhole system will no longer be used.

The official result will also be published early on Monday morning.

COVID-19 measures

Speaking on the new COVID-19 measures, Camilleri said ballot boxes from COVID-19 centres will be transferred to a segregated area of the counting hall, where officials in PPE gear will divide the votes according to districts.

The vote is still shown to party delegates, and will be counted separately. Information will be fed to the main system and added to the district tally. Normal votes cast, and votes cast at COVID centres will not mix.

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