Casual Elections Kick Off Today: Starting With Labour Candidates

The Electoral Commission is holding a series of casual elections to fill parliamentary seats left vacant after the general election.

On the Labour side, counting is taking place this morning to determine which candidates will fill eight seats vacated by MPs who were elected in more than one district.

Nationalist Party candidates, contesting seven similar vacancies, will go through the same process on Tuesday.

These are known as casual elections and they are used to fill seats in Parliament without going back to the voters.

Unlike by-elections, there is no fresh vote. Instead, the Electoral Commission returns to the ballot papers cast in the general election and carries out a fresh count based on voters’ original preferences.

Casual elections are usually triggered when a candidate wins in two districts. Since an MP can only take up one seat, they must give up the other, creating a vacancy.

That seat is then filled by re-examining the bundle of votes that originally elected the departing MP, to see which remaining candidate is next in line according to voter preferences.

The process follows Malta’s single transferable vote system, where votes move according to how people ranked their choices.

Candidates are eliminated or elected as counting progresses, and votes are transferred until someone reaches the required quota.

#MaltaDaily