The first Table shows, the distribution of voters according to the total number of parliamentary seats at various times.

There has been, not surprisingly, an increase in the number of voters per parliamentary seat. It was fewer than one thousand in 1921 and has exceeded four thousand in recent years.

Still, the change has been reasonably smooth: As the number of registered voters has grown due to population increases and the extension of voting rights (to all men and women in 1947 and 18-year-olds in 1976), the number of parliamentary seats has also increased from 40 to 50 in 1962, to 55 in 1971 and to 65 since 1976. (The aberrations of 1939 and 1945 occurred when only two districts were created for the election of a 10-member Council of Government.)

What the above national figures do not show, however, are the inequalities among districts in regard to the number of registered voters. The Tables below provide a look at the degree of inequality between districts that has occurred over the years.

This inequality can be usefully measured by what has been dubbed a "national quota." This measure is the one prescribed in Article 61 of the Constitution, namely, that the national total of registered voters is divided by the number of parliamentary seats and the result is then multiplied by the number of parliamentary seats to be filled in each district.

The resulting differences between this norm of a "national quota" and the actual number of a district's voting population have been computed below. The inequalities, as can be seen, were often quite substantial from 1947 to 1971, deviations above 10% then being quite common.

Large discrepancies were not only common in that period; they also were persistent for some particular districts. Thus, the Gozo constituency was a frequent beneficiary in those earlier years, needing fewer voters for each of its seats; the opposite held true for the First (Valletta) district.

In 1974 the rules were changed. The Constitution now commanded that there could be no more than a 5% deviation from the "national quota" in any district. This command has been met, by and large, by the Electoral Commission when it has drawn district boundaries from time to time.

Still, the constitutional standard has been violated eight times so far: In 1981 in the 1st District; in 1992 in the 4th and 11th Districts; in 1998 in the 7th, 8th and 9th Districts and in 2003 in the 1st and 5th Districts. These violations have probably been due to the fact that whereas district boundaries cannot be changed for a minimum of two years, the register of eligible voters is updated twice yearly and an election may be called before any needed boundary changes can be made.

There was an eight percent deviation in the 13th District in 2008. This can be attributed to the legislature's mandate of 2007 that the island of Gozo be continued as a single District regardless of any population changes. All other Districts in 2008 stayed within a range of roughly one percent.