Prawo wyborcze i prawo do głosowania obywateli mieszkających za granicą: rekonstrukcja „przykładu włoskiego”
ELECTORAL LAW AND RIGHT TO VOTE OF CITIZENS LIVING ABROAD: AN OUTLINE RECONSTRUCTION ON THE “ITALIAN CASE”

Summary/Abstract: The authors of this essay remark that, also if the electoral rules transforming votes into seats are the “heart” of the electoral legislation because they play a “central role in the form of government”, especially in the parliamentary one, it is more increasingly crucial for the consequences on the functioning of the modern democracies to examine other aspects of the electoral law such as the election campaign and public/private financing of political parties. For this reason, they underline how in Italy the constitutional reform (and its subsequent implementation by the legislation) that provided conditions for the exercise of the right to vote of the Italian residents abroad has not only placed delicate issues of constitutionality, but also led to some negative relapses on the management of the electoral process. The malfunctioning of the system primarily derived from the establishment of the Foreign Constituency (not necessary to facilitate the exercise of the right to vote for Italians abroad) and from the choice of the method of absentee ballots that did not guarantee the personality and secrecy of the vote. At the end of the article, they suggest that it would be better to introduce a registration system of those who want to exercise the absentee ballots; in this way the electoral materials would be sent only to those who have expressed the will to participate in the elections as suggested by the scholars in recent years.

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