• Municipal elections, voting on Sunday 3 and Monday 4 October

  • The Chamber definitively approves the elections decree: administrative vote postponed in autumn

  • Administrative elections, postponement decree: vote in the fall

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August 26, 2021 Municipalities will be able to establish "special seats for the collection of home voting" to ensure the right to vote for those in home treatment, in conditions of quarantine or fiduciary isolation.



The Viminale-Health protocol for the administrative elections of 3 and 4 October provides for this, which adopts "all the organizational and protective precautions necessary to ensure safety in carrying out electoral operations and prevent the risk of contagion".



To ensure safety, the members of the hospital sections and special seats must be in possession of the Green pass.



The ministers of the Interior, Luciana Lamorgese, and of Health, Roberto Speranza, have signed, by virtue of the provisions of article 4, paragraph 2, first sentence, of the decree-law of 17 August 2021, n. 117, the "Health and safety protocol for carrying out electoral consultations for the year 2021", in which some measures are identified to prevent the risk of infection with Covid-19 during the next elections.



With a special circular, the head of the Department for Internal and Territorial Affairs, Claudio Sgaraglia, consequently provided the prefects with the indications for the adoption of all the organizational and protective precautions necessary to guarantee safety in the carrying out electoral operations and preventing the risk of contagion.



With the decree-law 117/2021, the methods of collecting the vote of voters in conditions of quarantine or fiduciary isolation and of voters undergoing hospital or home treatment for Covid-19 were also regulated. In continuity with the provisions already made for the 2020 consultations, the establishment of hospital sections in health facilities with at least 100 beds hosting Covid-19 wards, which, by means of the relative special seats, will be called, has been envisaged, also, to provide for the collection of the home vote and the vote of hospitalized patients in the Covid-19 wards of health facilities with less than 100 beds.



Also this year, in case of ascertained impossibility of their establishment, the hospital sections and special seats may be composed of staff from the special regional assistance continuity units (Uscar) or, alternatively, by subjects belonging to civil protection organizations that have expressed their availability. Where further necessary, the mayor will appoint his delegates.



The decree law also introduced "an important novelty, in order to ensure the exercise of the right to vote by those who are in home treatment, in conditions of quarantine or fiduciary isolation. In this sense, it is Municipalities in which the aforementioned Covid health facilities are not located have been granted the possibility of establishing special seats for the collection of the home vote.



In the event of ascertained impossibility for the Municipality to establish such special seats, only one special seat for two or more local authorities. Finally, to guarantee adequate safety conditions, the members of the hospital sections and special seats must be in possession of the Green pass ".