The 12th and 10th districts have the highest number of uncollected voting documents, surpassing the 1,000 mark, Times of Malta has learnt.
By Thursday at midnight 8,372 voting documents remained uncollected, which is equivalent to 2.4 per cent of eligible voters. This figure is almost the same as that in 2013 when two per cent of voting documents were not collected.
However, a breakdown by district made available to this newspaper shows that the 12th, which includes St Paul’s Bay and Mellieħa, had the highest number of uncollected voting documents at 1,634.
The 10th district, which includes Sliema and St Julians, had the second highest rate of people reneging on their right to vote, with 1,138 opting not to pick up their voting document.
Third in line was the Gozo district with 884 people failing to pick up their voting pass.
According to Louis Gatt, who heads the Labour Party’s electoral office, it is normal for these three districts to have the highest rates of uncollected documents because of particular demographic factors. In Gozo, he said, the uncollected documents would most probably be of Maltese registered on the sister island and who would not bother to travel to Gozo to pick up them up.
Matthew Mangion, head of the Nationalist Party's electoral office, said the main factor on the 12th district was St Paul's Bay, where typically voters tend to demonstrate less interest in elections.
On the 10th district, Mr Mangion said a main factor explaining the higher number of uncollected voting documents were people registered as voters who have since moved abroad.
However, both Mr Mangion and Mr Gatt agreed that the trend across the board was similar to past elections.
The general election will be held tomorrow with polling stations opening at 7am and closing at 10pm.
