MaltaMedia.com

Polling booths across the Maltese Islands opened at 0700 CEST Saturday for the European Parliament Election and Local Elections in 23 localities.

All voting centres opened as scheduled and they will close at 2200 CEST as long as the Electoral Commission does not extend the time as it did for the General Election last year where a one-hour extension was given because of the long queues in certain polling booths

The ballot paper contains 34 names, from all the Maltese political parties and a few independent candidates.

Ballot boxes will be taken to the Naxxar Counting Hall, formerly know as the Trade Fair Grounds, for the first phase of the counting procedure. Proper sorting and counting will not start before noon Sunday, following instructions from the European Parliament since these elections are being held in all 27 EU member states.

The electoral campaign ended on Thursday night and the traditional day of reflection was observed on Friday.

15,862 voting documents for the EP elections remained uncollected. This is over 5,000 more than the 10,100 voting documents not collected in the first EP elections held in Malta in 2004. This means that of 306,549 voters are eligible to vote out of a total of 322,411 registered voters.

8,830 voting documents have remained uncollected for the Local Council Election being held in Mdina, Cospicua, Zabbar, Victoria, Birkirkara, Fgura, Gudja, Gharb, Ghaxaq, Kalkara, Lija, Marsascala, Mgarr, Msida, Naxxar, Pieta’, Rabat, San Gwann, Sannat, Sliema, Tarxien, Xghajra and Mtarfa. There are 132,859 registered voters in those localities.

The European Parliament Elections are being held for the second time since Malta joined the EU in 2004. Five MEPs have to be elected while the first runner-up will have observer status and if confirmed by the Lisbon Treaty, will become the 6th MEP for Malta.

MaltaMedia will provide special election coverage starting Saturday, with particular emphasis on Sunday until the official result for the European Parliament Elections is announced. It has already launched a special election blogosphere and will provide an SMS breaking news service on Vodafone number 5090 2060.