Home > 2.2 Polling station > MALTA - General Elections Act
 
 
 
Download file    
 
 
Article 68
 

(1) The Commission shall ensure that, as far as possible, there is in each polling booth an adequate distance between the place where the Assistant Commissioners sit and the voting compartments within which voters are to mark their ballot papers. The voting compartments shall be constructed in such a manner as to exclude the possibility that any person may see how the voter is marking his ballot paper.


(2) The Commission shall request the political parties to furnish it with a sufficient number of photographs, each not exceeding seventeen centimetres by twenty three centimetres, of its candidates in order that the Commission may affix one photographof each candidate in each polling booth of the electoral division in which the candidate is contesting. Each photograph shall have the name of the candidate and the name and badge of the party he is representing, if any, and photographs shall be displayed in the order that the candidates’ names appear on the ballot paper. The Commission shall give such directions as it may deem appropriate regarding the size and format of such photographs.


(3) The Commission shall ensure that in each voting compartment a copy of the Instructions to Voters set out in Schedule 8B to this Act are affixed in a place clearly visible to the voter and that writing instruments are available for use by voters.


(4) The Commission shall direct the Assistant Commissioners to ensure that they place the ballot boxes as near as possible to where they will be sitting and in such manner as they may clearly see the voter introducing the ballot paper into it and to ensure that the voter folds the ballot paper in such manner as to leave the official mark visible.


(5) The Commission shall prepare a room or rooms in each polling place wherein to store until the polling day the ballot boxes, the list of persons entitled to vote, ballot papers and other relevantdocuments and materials to be used in that polling place on polling day. The room shall have adequate lighting facilities and shall allow the visual checking of the inside through a small opening in the door.


(6) The political parties shall be afforded all facilities to inspect all polling places well in advance of polling day and to make suggestions to the Commission on the use thereof.


(7) The ballot boxes shall be of such size and shall be manufactured of such material as the Commission shall determine provided that the Commission shall ensure that it is suitable to be sealed during voting and may not be tampered with without detection. The top of the ballot box is to be made of translucent material, in as far as this is technically possible.