Electoral law, the vote for non-residents is coming: who will be able to ask for it and how

One voter in ten lives far from the municipality in which he is registered on the electoral lists. For them, the reform of the electoral law, which has just received the definitive yes, introduces for the first time a stable regulation of non-resident voting, after the experiments linked to individual rounds: the 2024 European elections, reserved for students, and the 2025 referendums, also open to workers and people undergoing treatment. For the referendum on justice in March, however, nothing had been planned.

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The law arises from an amendment by the centre-right parties, first signed by Fabio Roscani (FdI), approved unanimously in the Chamber. Anyone who, for study or work, is in a municipality in a region other than that of residence may ask to vote in the municipality of temporary residence, if the expected stay is at least nine months. For those who are outside the region for medical reasons the threshold drops to three months, as long as the voting date falls within the period.

The Senate then extended the possibility to caregivers, with an amendment first signed by FdI senator Domenica Spinelli reformulated by the government: anyone who assists a person undergoing care in another region will be able to vote there, if the elections fall in that period. A voter registered in Rome who follows a family member undergoing therapy in a hospital in Milan will no longer have to return to the capital just to vote.

The non-resident vote applies to political elections, European elections and referendums, not to local elections. The application must be submitted by December 31st of each year and is valid for the following year's consultations. Anyone who becomes non-resident after that date can present it within 30 days from the moment in which they meet the requirements and in any case no later than the 45th day before the vote.

The eligible voters enter a list kept by the electoral office of the municipality of domicile and are distributed in the ordinary sections, usually according to a proximity criterion: there will be no dedicated seats. The municipality of residence notes in the sectional list that the voter will vote elsewhere, so as to exclude double voting. By the fifth day before the consultation, the municipality of domicile issues, also electronically, a certificate with the number and address of the section.