Updated 10.15pm

Voters headed to the polls on Saturday to choose the six politicians who will represent the country in the European Parliament for the next five years.

Turnout stood at 42.59% by 2pm for the MEP elections and was marginally lower, at 41.13%, for local council elections at that time, the Electoral Commission said in a statement. 

Polling stations in towns and villages opened at 7am and closed at 10pm.

In a brief message to social media right as voting ended, Prime Minister and Labour leader Robert Abela thanked those who had taken the time to vote as well as the volunteers and workers who had contributed to the party's campaign. 

With voting concluded, work will now focus on ensuring ballot boxes reach the Naxxar counting hall securely, where a reconciliation process will take place before vote counting begins in earnest at around 9am on Sunday. 

Provisional turnout

The provisional turnout figures issued by the Electoral Commission on Saturday afternoon included votes cast in early voting sessions held over the past week. Ten per cent of all voting documents remained uncollected.  

In 2019, voting by 2pm in the MEP elections stood at 32%, but the two figures cannot be accurately compared, as the 2019 figure did not factor in early voting.  

Confusion over turnout calculations

The unusually high provisional figure prompted widespread confusion, further fuelled by the fact that the Electoral Commission statement provided no detail about how it had calculated the figure. 

Pollster Vincent Marmara suggested the Commission had switched to calculating turnout as a percentage of registered voters, rather than eligible ones.

He calculated that if the 2019 methodology was used, provisional turnout at 2pm would have stood at 38.27% in the European Parliament elections and 31.16% for local councils.

But at 8.30pm, the Electoral Commission issued a clarification to explain its methodology: turnout was still being calculated on the number of eligible voters, it said, but now included early votes cast. 

The number of eligible voters is calculated by subtracting those who did not collect their voting documents from the total number of registered voters.

A Commission spokesperson told Times of Malta they changed methodology after seeing a dramatic increase in the number of early votes cast. 

Leaders cast their votes 

Robert Abela and his wife Lydia cast their vote at St Thomas More Secondary School in Żejtun at 10am. They were welcomed by the Chief Electoral Commissioner Joseph Camilleri.

After exiting the polling station, Abela told reporters “this was a beautiful campaign by the people, with the people, for the people and now it is up to the people to decide.”

European Parliament president and PN MEP Roberta Metsola cast her vote at the Sliema Primary School in Sliema at around 10.15am. She was joined by her husband Ukko and greeted by a small crowd.

Shortly after casting her vote, Metsola told journalists she hopes "democracy wins".

“The next five years will be very important with many challenges for the European Union,” she said.

“We have the opportunity to make a decision as to the direction that our own country and Europe will take.”

Metsola remains the clear frontrunner in the race, with one in every four voters listing her as their top preference according to a recent Times of Malta poll.

PN leader Bernard Grech and his wife Annemarie cast their votes at the secondary school in Mosta around an hour later.

Grech thanked journalists and the electoral commission employees for the important work being carried out.

Saturday also marks Grech’s 53rd birthday. 

ADPD leader and MEP candidate Sandra Gauci cast her vote at around 10.30am at the Qawra Primary School in St Paul’s Bay. 

Recently-elected President Myriam Spiteri Debono and her husband Anthony voted at the Birkirkara secondary school at around 11.30am.

At around the same time, independent candidate Arnold Cassola, a favourite among voters, according to the latest polls, cast his vote at the Pembroke School.

A total of 370,184 people are eligible to vote, down by almost 1,500 from the last round of these elections in 2019, according to the Electoral Register.

According to unofficial figures, around 10 per cent of MEP electoral documents remained uncollected, roughly the same as the 2019 elections.

Polling stations remain open until 10pm with unofficial results expected on Sunday morning.