Referendum, 8 June for the first time people will be able to vote off-site. Over 67,000 have applied

Long journeys, prohibitive costs, work, study or care commitments are obstacles that in many cases create 'involuntary abstentions' on the part of Italian citizens living outside their municipality or province of residence. It is estimated that in Italy there are approximately 4.9 million people 'away from home'; of these, those allowed to vote in the municipalities of temporary residence amount to 67,305, of which 28,430 for work reasons, 38,105 for study reasons and 770 for medical treatment. In relation to the overall figure, which is in the process of being consolidated and verified by the municipal electoral offices, the provinces with the highest incidence of voters away from home are: Milan with 10,980; Turin with 9,691; Rome with 9,890 and Bologna with 7,785. There will be a total of 51 special sections reserved for 'out-of-office' voters (set up when there are at least 800 out-of-office voters), of which 12 in Turin, 11 in Milan, 9 in Bologna, 7 in Rome and 2 in Florence. The municipalities that do not set up special sections will distribute the out-of-office voters in the ordinary electoral sections.

According to analyses, referendum votes are usually less 'attractive' to voters than, for example, European elections. With regard to the latter, in the 2024 elections, the number of out-of-town students who voted - for the first time - for lists and candidates from their home constituency (without the need to return to their municipality of residence) was approximately 24,000. In the comparison between the two years, a 58.77% increase in applications among out-of-town students can be observed. "Looking at the first experiments, which have already taken place in other European countries, we can see an initial demand of low average applications that is gradually growing - says the director of The Good Lobby, Federico Anghele - judging from the data we have available, for being the first experimentation of voting from outside the country in the history of our country, we can say that it is a good result".

One problem raised by many out-of-town voters was certainly the time window with which they had to manage the application process. The timeframe was from 30 April until 4 May - roughly 35 days - which, however, did not take into account the problems 'related to holidays and the various long weekends that occurred within this period'. An even more important problem, however, concerns the lack of information inherent in the novelty of the possibility of off-site voting. "If we notice, the type of voter who most applied for off-site voting are students," says Federico Anghele. The latter are in fact a more informed basin and easier to reach through social campaigns, etc.'. In fact, the city of Milan, which is the city with the highest incidence of off-site voters, launched a real awareness campaign in the period between 30 April and 4 May, which produced 10,980 applications.

In Europe, postal voting is possible in Spain, Luxembourg, Germany, Ireland, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and Poland. In most of these countries, postal voting constitutes one of the channels available for off-site voting. Currently, the European countries that have not yet adopted remote voting modes - whether by mail or by proxy - are Italy, Malta and Cyprus. Even countries with a population comparable or larger than Italy, such as Spain and Germany, had - at the beginning of their experimental phase - few requests for voting, which gradually grew, as Federico Anghele also mentioned above. In Spain the postal vote in 2000 involved 500,000 voters with 2.6 million in 2023. While in Germany, postal voting in 1957 was 4.9%; in 1990, 9.4%; in 2017, 28.6%; and in 2021, 47.3%.