Voter turnout reached 19.95 per cent within the first three hours of voting in the nationwide elections held across the Maldives on Saturday, the Elections Commission has announced.

Statistics released by the Commission show that a total of 294,876 people are eligible to vote in today’s polls. This includes 144,506 women and 150,370 men.

Voting began at 8:00 a.m., and by the three-hour mark, 58,819 voters had cast their ballots. This represents 19.95 per cent of the total eligible voters. Meanwhile, 236,057 eligible voters, or 80.05 per cent, had not yet voted at that time.

The data further indicates that 25,761 women and 33,058 men had voted within the first three hours.

Today’s voting includes three key processes: the Local Council elections, the Women’s Development Committee (WDC) elections, and a public referendum seeking opinion on amending the Constitution to allow presidential and parliamentary elections to be held on the same day.

A total of 888,845 ballot papers were printed for the elections. This includes 297,959 ballot papers for the Local Council elections, 292,706 for the WDC elections, and 298,180 for the public referendum.

Polling is scheduled to continue from 8:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Ballot boxes will be closed at 4:00 p.m., although voters already in queue at that time will be allowed to cast their votes before polling officially concludes.