 |
July 27 - August 3,2003 |
Voting Trouble
Election problems for Italians abroad
By Francesco Riondino
Originally Published: 2003-06-08
On June 1, some 70 people called in at Toronto's Italian Consulate to request the documents needed for voting on two referenda. This marked the beginning of the final stage of the preliminary operations for the enactment of the law on voting abroad. For the first time in Italian history, Italian citizens residing abroad were able to cast their ballots without returning to the motherland.
Although the Consulate task force, 11 people devoted to this one task, seemed to work quite smoothly, several problems surfaced on the central side of the electoral organization. The lists of voters were compiled by the Italian Ministry of Interior Affairs, with collating lists sent in by municipalities all over Italy. However, the lists provided from the municipal authorities (tasked with maintaining the registrar of Italians residing abroad - AIRE) did not appear up to date, and the data sent to Rome was old and frequently incorrect.
As a result, several electoral envelopes were sent to addresses where the original addressee has been gone for years. Some Italians who bought their homes from other Italians, however, saw it fit to open the envelope and vote 'on behalf' of the original addressee. "This is obviously illegal," explained Consular officials, "since the envelopes mailed are reserved for the addressee displayed on them, and nobody else should open them."
Another problem concerned many people who were born in Italy and subsequently moved to Canada; when they acquired Canadian citizenship, they had to renounce their Italian one. However, many forgot to tell their old Italian municipality about this renunciation, so they were still considered Italian citizens and their names were included in the lists.
All this means is that some people who cast their vote for these referenda had no right to do so. This situation could even lead, in the worst-case scenario, to the annulment of the vote, entailing damages for several million euros for the Government of Italy.
Finally, even if a punctual scrutiny of Consular lists may obviate to the second type of mistakes, the first one will be much more difficult to detect and solve. Since a slip inserted in the return envelope will only inform Rome about who voted and who did not, how will people find out whether the real voter was the original addressee or someone else?
Page 1/...Page 2
|
| Home / Back to Top |
|
|
 |
|
|
</ td>
