Referendum, voter who does not pick up the ballot paper is considered a non-voter

A voter who 'refuses to collect all the ballot papers', as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced she would do today, 'cannot be considered as a voter and should therefore not be counted among the voters in the section'. This is what is stated in the 'Instructions for the operations of section offices' drawn up by the Ministry of the Interior in view of the referendum on 8 and 9 June.

"Therefore, for a correct counting of the actual number of voters for each referendum, if the polling station has already 'registered' the voter in the sectional list and/or in the register for the annotation of the card number, a further annotation (e.g., with the wording: 'non-voter') must be made in the relevant boxes and columns of these documents," it goes on to say, and in the same paragraph it is specified that "on the voter's card, the sectional stamp must not be affixed (unless, of course, it has already been)."

The Viminale vademecum also equates abstention with the case in which, 'in the event of more than one referendum being held at the same time', the voter 'may abstain from participating in the vote for one or more of them and may therefore legitimately withdraw the ballot paper for some referendums and refuse it for others. The scrutineers shall therefore note, both in the boxes printed on the back of the cover page of the register and in the sectional list next to the voter's name, the referendums in which the said voter does not participate and for which he cannot therefore be considered a voter".