After the regional election vote, politics seems to be accelerating the reopening of the election law development site. A theme that has long characterized parliamentary debates, also in light of the constitutional reforms that the majority is undertaking, starting from the office of prime minister, is closely linked to the need for a new voting system that is ‘compatible’ with the direct election of the Prime Minister, as set out in the text of the reform. The existing electoral law framework, which lawmakers want to intervene in, currently presents a different set of regulations, governing the methods of selecting members of parliament, regional administrators – from governors to mayors – and members of parliament. Mechanisms have changed frequently over time, and currently present systems ranging from proportional to majority, most involving mixed systems.
For them political electionswhile for the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic, the system currently in effect is a hybrid system, mainly proportional with a corrective majority, known as ‘Rosatellum’ (Law No. 165/2017). A system that, compared with the Mattarellum, in force in Italy from 1993 to 2005, appears to be inverted: laws using the name of the current head of state are in fact largely majority-based, with a more dominant single-member component, accounting for 75% of the seats. Between Rosatellum and Mattarellum, there was room for a return to ‘true’ proportional representation, a system that had been in use for the first forty years of the Republic. This was Caderoli’s 2005 law, or ‘Porcellum’, which established a proportional system with very large majority premiums, varying between the House and the Senate, and thresholds of 4% for parties and 10% for coalitions. Lastly, Porcellum provides a blocked list, with no preferences.
Rosatellum. Rosatellum established the assignment of 3/8 of the seats (147 in the House and 74 in the Senate including the seats in Valle d’Aosta and Trentino Alto-Adige) by the majority method, in single-member constituencies. The assignment of the remaining 5/8 seats (245 seats in the DPR and 122 seats in the Senate) is carried out by a proportional method, in multi-member constituencies, between lists and coalitions of lists that have exceeded the threshold. For the Senate, there are 20 electoral districts corresponding to regional areas. For the Chamber of Deputies, there are 28 constituencies, including Valle d’Aosta. Each constituency, in turn, is divided into single-member constituencies and multi-member constituencies. For the Senate, the number of single-member constituencies is estimated to be equivalent to 3/8 of the total seats up for election, which currently stands at 74 (out of 196). However, in the DPR, there are 147 single-member constituencies (out of 392).
Each elector has one vote for the House and one for the Senate, to be cast on one ballot paper, bearing the name of the candidate in the single-member constituency, the mark of each list or, in the case of lists linked in a coalition, the mark of that list, with alongside the names of the candidates in the multi-member constituency (from two to four). For the proportional share, candidates from the list of multi-member electoral districts are declared elected in the order of their submission, within the limits of the seats to which the list is entitled.
For a majority of political votes, the candidate with the most preferences in each single-member constituency is declared elected. The remaining 2 percent of seats (8 deputies and 4 senators) are ‘reserved’ for the votes of Italian citizens living abroad, in this case through proportional representation. Finally, the threshold is foreseeable: a single list must exceed the 3% threshold at national level to access a proportional distribution of seats (with the exception of language minority groups). The coalition must exceed the 10% threshold.
Area – Different systems for electing regional councilors and regional presidents. The model varies from region to region, but generally involves a proportional system with a majority bonus to ensure orderly government and direct election of regional council presidents. In some situations, the use of split voting is considered, as happened in the last round that just ended in Veneto, namely the possibility of selecting a presidential candidate and a list that has nothing to do with him. Still using the Veneto model, voters, as in most other regions, vote in one round, without the possibility of a second round, ultimately giving the winning coalition a majority bonus.
City – For mayoral elections, Italians changed the system based on the number of residents in the voting municipality: in municipalities with a population of more than 15 thousand inhabitants, a double-round majority system was applied for the first election of citizens, with a final round if no candidate obtained an absolute majority in the first round. Even in densely populated cities, majority bonuses are awarded to lists or coalitions associated with the elected mayor. In cities with a population of less than 15 thousand people, the mayor is elected by a one-round majority system: whoever gets the most votes becomes the first citizen.
European elections – Finally, the European elections held every 5 years provide a proportional electoral system with a threshold of 4% and the possibility of preferential voting. The seats are assigned within one national constituency, to competing lists presented in 5 very large constituencies.
