Times Talk Campaign Watch: The secret life of your ballot

With just two days to go before the country heads to the polls, the latest episode of Times Talk is an essential guide for the perplexed, breaking down the mechanics of Malta’s electoral system – a system often described as one of the most democratic, yet complex, in the world.

The podcast attempts to trace where your vote will go from the moment you slide it in the ballot box on Saturday until all MPs are elected early next week. It also lifts the lid on a second election at play – an often overlooked but perhaps more heated battle between candidates of the same parties within districts.

The podcast features Times of Malta journalist Daniel Ellul and financial consultant David Grech, who is also the co-creator of the election simulation website vot.mt.

They unpacked the single transferable vote (STV) system – a method of voting that grants the electorate significant power but remains a source of confusion for many.

The number 1 is doubly powerful

Malta is one of the few countries in the world to use the STV system for national elections, alongside Ireland and certain elections in Australia.

Malta’s system is built on the principle of proportionality. To govern, a party must have a parliamentary majority of seats, which they are given according to the number 1 votes the party gets.

The country is divided into 13 electoral districts, each electing five MPs. Because of constitutional safeguards introduced following the controversial 1981 elections, the system now guarantees that the party winning the majority of first-preference votes will be given the right to govern, with extra seats added if necessary to ensure the parliamentary majority reflects the popular vote.

This is assuming only two parties are elected to parliament, as has been the case since the 1960s.

At the heart of the Maltese ballot is the number ‘1’. This single choice performs a dual function: it identifies the party you would like to see in government and the preferred candidate.

But stopping at just the number 1 strips you of much more influence on which MPs are ultimately elected, Grech said.

“If you only vote for one person and that person is either elected early or eliminated, your vote effectively dies there, when it could have gone further,” he explained.

To keep a vote ‘alive’ and ensure it continues to work towards electing more of your preferred candidates, you should continue numbering preferences (2, 3, 4, etc) across the list.

And, contrary to what the big parties like to say, crossing over to smaller parties does not necessarily make your vote weaker.

When your vote gets to Naxxar

Historically, the counting process was a manual and gruelling – albeit often exciting and gripping – affair that lasted days. Today, while the sorting remains quite slow and visible to party agents, the introduction of electronic counting has revolutionised the speed of the final result.

However, the perspex tradition remains. Each party has agents behind the perspex at each counting desk, whose job is to carefully observe the sorting process and take note where each number 1 vote goes.

By sampling the ballot papers as they are turned face up and sorted, parties can often predict the final result with startling accuracy within hours of the count beginning. If the margin of victory is very wide, they can even call the election within an hour.

“They are filling out notebooks, watching closely every ‘1’ that comes up. That’s why you see celebrations starting long before the official result is announced,” Ellul said.

The complex math

For a candidate to be elected, they must reach a quota, which is determined by the total number of valid votes in a district divided by six, plus one vote. This means each district has a different quota. The larger the district, the larger the quota.

When a candidate exceeds this quota with their number 1 votes, their surplus votes are transferred to the candidates marked as ‘2’ on those ballot papers. Every time another candidate reaches the quota with the votes they inherit from the more popular candidates, they get elected too.

When no other candidate manages to reach the quota, the person with the fewest number 1 votes is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed to the next available preference until five candidates reach a quota in each district and are elected.

Grech pointed to the 2013 election in Gozo as a prime example of how every preference counts. In that district, the final seat was decided by a margin of just nine votes.

“That’s nine people who decided the fifth MP for Gozo. It shows that your second, third or even eighth preference can be the deciding factor,” he said.

The podcast also explains casual elections. In the Maltese system, high-profile candidates often run in two districts. If they are elected in both, they must forfeit a seat from one of the districts.

This does not trigger a fresh election but a casual one, where the ballot papers that originally elected that candidate are recounted to see who the voters’ next choices were.

This system ensures that the party retains that seat and can give it to another one of their candidates.

The internal battles within parties

But the most intriguing part of the Maltese system is perhaps the internal competition it fosters. Because each party fields multiple candidates in each district, members of the same party are essentially running against one another for the district’s five seats.

This creates a unique political dynamic, especially in districts whose candidates have served as ministers, where a candidate’s biggest rival might not be someone from the opposing party but the colleague standing next to them.

“This is why there are so many coffee mornings and house visits and why your letter box is full of brochures,” Ellul said. “It is why they go to village feasts, attend weddings and funerals and send you flowers when your loved ones die.”

Because the election is not just between the big parties but between the candidates themselves. Labour candidates are fighting to take each other’s Labour votes, and the same goes for the PN candidates, he said.

And that battle could be more heated than the struggle between parties.

“In some districts, you’ll find candidates of the same party who are actively trying to harm their peers and, sometimes, you find that some of them are not on speaking terms.”

Grech also noted a common strategy where younger or less-established candidates “hook their wagon” to party heavyweights.

For example, in districts where leaders Robert Abela and Alex Borg are also on the ballot, other candidates from the same party campaign on the back of their popularity. This means they will actively ask voters to give them the number 2, hoping to catch the surplus votes that are transferred once the leaders exceed the quota.

The full episode of Times Talk is available on the Times of Malta website and all major podcast platforms.