Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1532058
3 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 2 FEBRUARY 2025 NEWS voters: Proposal to split Marsaskala, and Pieta for next election changes will be reunited with their community in the 7th District. The proposal sees Mġarr's 3,734 voters being shifted from the 7th Dis- trict to the 12th District and Mdina's 176 voters from the 11th District to the 7th District. The 11th District would be the only one to have just two localities – Mos- ta and Attard. Mosta has the second largest voting population at 17,331 after Birkirkara, which counts 17,621 voters. PN proposal retains councils' territorial integrity Meanwhile, a second proposal put forward by the electoral commission- ers nominated by the Na- tionalist Party suggests a radical overhaul of the dis- tricts to avoid splitting up communities. The plan seen by Malt- aToday retains the terri- torial integrity of all local councils except Swieqi, which would see the 1,296 voters in the Madliena hamlet hived off from the rest of the locality. Sources privy to the dis- cussions told MaltaToday that the plan put forward by the Labour nominees was approved by the Elec- toral Commission and the proposal will be handed over to the Prime Minister in a finalised report. It is very likely; the National- ist nominees will present a minority report as hap- pened in 2021. Both re- ports will then be tabled in parliament and the chang- es will only come into ef- fect after a vote. However, parliament may send the report back to the Elector- al Commission and ask for it to be revised. The changes to the elec- toral boundaries are nec- essary to ensure that each of the 12 districts in Malta has roughly the same num- ber of voters. The 13th District, which comprises Gozo and Comino, is dis- tinct and the Constitution ensures it remains a single district irrespective of vot- er population changes. Three districts required changes Data seen by MaltaToday shows that three electoral districts saw population changes that surpassed the 5% variance from the average number of voters allowed by the Constitu- tion, and thus necessitated boundary changes. The 1st District wit- nessed a reduction in vot- ers that superseded the 5% variance, while the 7th and 12th districts registered an increase in voters. Two other districts – the 9th and the 3rd – were within the 5% variance but only just. The Constitution states that when drawing up electoral boundaries, the Electoral Commission must take into account ge- ographical proximity and population density of the localities that are grouped together. The 13 districts elect five MPs each and addition- al seats are then added to ensure stricter propor- tionality between votes obtained at first count and parliamentary representa- tion. The proportionali- ty mechanism has had to be used in every election since 2013. Effectively, the corrective mechanism makes gerrymandering of electoral boundaries to fa- vour one party over anoth- er irrelevant. However, the propor- tionality mechanism only kicks in if two parties are elected to parliament. If a third-party elects MPs, no additional seats will be added and the parliamen- tary strength of the par- ties as established by the election outcome will de- termine who forms a new government.