Information on Maltese Elections

Official Sources of Electoral Data

After each election, the Malta Government's Printing Office publishes the results of the election, by "Division" (election district) in a special issue of the Government Gazette. This will be in both English and Maltese, titled "Results of Poll: General Election [year]." There will be subsequent publications in the Gazette, as needed, to report the results of so-called "casual elections" which are needed to fill vacancies caused by (a) candidates who had won two seats in the preceding general election and had to resign one of their won seats and (b) sitting members who resigned or died while in office. These printed records are for sale, at a minimal price, after each election but they go out of print very quickly. Copies for past elections may be obtained, with sufficient ingenuity and patience, in some Maltese libraries.

Electoral Administration in Malta

Policy questions such as the drawing of proposals for election district boundaries are the responsibility of the Electoral Commission, a body appointed by the Prime Minister from among persons nominated by the two major political parties. Administration of elections and maintenance of the electoral register are the responsibility of the Electoral Office, a department within the Office of Prime Minister. It has a small staff and is headed by the Chief Electoral Commissioner. The address of the Electoral Office is: Evans Building, Valletta, Malta. Inquiries about electoral matters are more likely to receive reasonably prompt attention if they are addressed to the Department of Information, Auberge de Castille, Castille Palace, Valletta, rather than directly to the bodies mentioned above.

Some Bibliographic Information

While there is a considerable body of election literature that deals with the single-transferable-vote (STV) used by the Maltese, there is very little that addresses itself specifically to Maltese elections. (The use of STV in Ireland, on the other hand, has produced a much larger literature.) Only two books deal with Maltese elections at some length and they are in the Maltese language. These two works include tabulations of election statistics and comments on the context of each general election. The authors are former journalists for political party newspapers, Schiavone (Nationalist) and Sacco (Labour): Schiavone, Michael J. "L-Elezzjonijiet f'Malta, 1849 - 1992: Storja, Fatti, Cifri," Malta: Stamperija Indipendenza (1992) 726 pp. Sacco, Remig, "L-Elezzjonijiet Generali, 1849 - 1986: Il-grajja politika u kostituzzjonali ta' Malta," Malta: Klabb Kotba Matin (1986) 282 pp. The following articles deal specifically with aspects of Maltese elections: Craig, James, "Malta: Mintoff's Election Victory," West European Politics 5, (1982), pp. 318-320 Fenech, Dominic, "The 1987 Maltese Election: Between Europe and the Mediterranean," West European Politics 11 (1988), pp. 133-138 Hirczy, Wolfgang, "Explaining Near-Universal Turnout: The Case of Malta," European Journal of Political Research 27 (1995), pp. 255-272 Howe, Stephen, "The Maltese General Election of 1987," Electoral Studies 6 (1987), pp. 235-247 Kopp, Manfred, "The Maltese Electoral System," in: Horst Reimann (ed.), Research on Malta: A German Perspective (Augsburg, 1991) Lane, John, "The Election of Women Under Proportional Representation: The Case of Malta," Democratisation 2 (1995), pp. 140-157 Proctor, J. H., "The Acceptance of Proportional Representation in Malta," Parliamentary Affairs 33 (1980), pp. 308-320 Zanella, Remo, "The Maltese Electoral System and Its Distorting Effects," Electoral Studies 9 (1990), pp. 205-215 For an understanding of the operation of STV generally, the following works are among those worth consulting: Doron, Gideon and Richard Kronick, "Single Transferable Vote: An Example of a Perverse Social Choice Function," American Journal of Political Science 21 (1977), pp. 303-312 Katz, Richard, "The Single Transferable Vote and Proportional Representation," in: Arend Lijphart and Bernard Grofman (eds.), Choosing an Electoral System (New York: 1984), pp. 135-145 Lakeman, Enid, How Democracies Vote (4th ed., London, 1974) [by an advocate of the single-transferable-vote] Mair, Peter, "Districting Choices under the Single-Transferable-Vote," in: Bernard Grofman and Arend Lijphart (eds.), Electoral Laws and Their Political Consequences (New York, 1986), pp. 289-307

These notes were prepared by John Lane (Professor Emeritus at SUNY Buffalo) in November, 1995.