Circular from the Interior Ministry, the off-site voting machine starts

The process is underway to make the possibility of off-site voting effective for students, workers, or for care and caregiver reasons, starting from the next elections. After giving the go-ahead to the electoral law, in fact, the Interior Ministry sent the prefects a Circular in which they are asked to inform the Municipalities of the obligations under their responsibility, "recalling in particular the need for immediate activation of the list and publication of the notice" for the questions.

The document contains instructions for establishing the annual municipal register of non-local voters, foreseen for political elections, European elections or referendums. According to the Circular of the Department for Internal and Territorial Affairs of the Interior Ministry, the Municipalities must publish on their websites "adequately in advance of 31 December" a notice with the requirements, terms, application form and contact details for the electronic submission of the request for registration in the annual list of non-local voters.

The Circular recalls the 4 categories of "out of office": voters temporarily domiciled, for study or work, for at least nine months, in a Municipality of a different Region; those who are in this condition, for a period of at least three months, in which the date of the vote falls, for reasons of personal care, or as family caregivers, or as parents or cohabiting family members of a minor undergoing therapy or treatment in a health facility outside the region.

The deadline for submitting the application is set every year at 31 December, then by 31 January of each year the Municipalities must communicate to the Central Directorate for electoral services the number of voters registered in the lists, divided into categories of "out of office" and Municipality of origin. For those who find themselves "out of office" after December 31st, they must request inclusion within 30 days to participate in the elections during the year.

The electoral offices of the Municipalities must therefore keep the list of voters away from home. The Municipality of residence must respond "with the utmost promptness" to the requests of the Municipality of temporary domicile, "noting in the sectional electoral list in which the voter is registered that the latter will vote in another Municipality". The voters admitted to vote "off-site" are distributed in the ordinary sections, according to a criterion of territorial proximity to the temporary domicile and, normally, in numbers not exceeding 10% of the voters registered in the section.