Council of State, new elections in Pescara in 23 sections: here's what happened

The judges of Palazzo Spada, with respect to the appeals lodged against the first instance ruling, reformed that ruling insofar as it ordered the annulment of the electoral operations for sections 2, 90, 140 and 145. It follows that the new elections will concern sections 25, 28, 31, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 51, 55, 57, 71, 73, 74, 78, 89, 95, 117, 137, 157, 166 and 169.

In its ruling, the Council of State also explains why the vote should not be totally annulled. 'The College,' it reads, 'considered the errors in the minutes to be mere irregularities, insofar as they did not lead to a compression of the free expression of the vote, that is, in all cases it was possible, through verification, to reconstruct the traceability of the ballot papers and the reliability of the result. And therefore the electoral operations were annulled' only in those sections for which 'it was not possible to deduce the will of the electoral body'. This entailed an "assessment on a case-by-case, section-by-section basis, as, moreover, was well highlighted by the appealed judgement, which the College decided to share, also in view of the peculiarity of the case under examination, characterised precisely by the remarkable, overall, disorder in the minutes, clearly confirmed by the verification".

The verifications made it possible to ascertain 'the only cases in which this disorder reached such levels as to become a real and substantial flaw'. With regard to the so-called test of resistance, i.e. the number of 584 votes more than the 30,952 that allowed the mayor to win in the first round, 'it cannot be affirmed, with a sufficient degree of certainty, that the annulment of the acts, within the limits of the ascertained illegitimacy, would be incapable of substantially altering the result'.

"Today's ruling by the Council of State proves and certifies once again that the last local elections in the Municipality of Pescara were and are valid. There were material errors made by the presidents of the polling stations appointed by the Court of Appeal and by a tangled verification action carried out by the then head of the Prefecture. We will repeat the vote in just twenty or so sections, a vote that will confirm the never-to-be-surpassed advantage of the legitimately incumbent mayor Carlo Masci," said the president of the Abruzzo Regional Council, Lorenzo Sospiri, commenting on the event.

"Mayor Masci should apologise to all the people of Pescara for failing to ensure the regularity of the democratic moment that brings citizens to vote," says Carlo Costantini, candidate for mayor of the centre-left coalition in the 2024 Pescara local elections. "Masci and the centre-right should also apologise to the TAR magistrates. The Council of State has certified the full correctness of the logical and legal process that led the Administrative Court of Pescara to the annulment of the elections and, therefore, Masci and the centre-right exponents should take back all the accusations they have been making for days against the authors of this ruling,' Costantini said. In the 2024 elections, the centre-left coalition had stopped at 34.42%, with 21,192 votes.

"I take note of the Council of State's ruling that upheld our appeal only in part, ruling that we should return to the polls in 23 sections (including one hospital) out of 170. Reading the ruling, we note that Carlo Costantini's appeal was totally rejected and his thesis - that we should return to the polls in all sections of the city - was categorically denied. The ruling also clearly ruled out that the phenomenon of the so-called 'ballot-box' had occurred, confirming that the elections had taken place regularly,' the mayor of Pescara, Carlo Masci, stressed in a note. The mayor remains in the saddle in Pescara while waiting for the result of the new elections. 'In the meantime,' Masci said, 'I remain in office for all the activities already in place, continuing to act calmly for the good of the city, as I have always done, holding firm to my vision of Pescara shared with the centre-right. The numbers that divide us from the centre-left candidate are clear and unquestionable, and I am certain that the people of Pescara will have no doubts and will once again be at our side'.