ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The vote of Italian citizens residing abroad is a right enshrined in paragraph 3 of Article 48 of the Italian Constitution which thus establishes:

The following articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution identify the number of Members and Senators elected by Italian citizens abroad.

History
Italian citizens resident abroad have always had the right to vote in all elections and referendums organized in Italy, like all other Italian citizens. However, in order to exercise the vote, the Italian emigrants must register their residence abroad at the consulate of competence and be registered in the Register of Italians resident abroad (AIRE, established in 1988); moreover, until 2001, they had to physically return to the Italian municipality in whose electoral lists were registered.

Before that, the only exception to this rule was the election of the European Parliament, in which Italian voters resident in another of the Member States of the European Union can still vote in the special seat set up by the nearest Italian consulate. Since the first direct elections to the European Parliament in 1979, Italian citizens abroad can participate in three alternative ways:
choosing to vote on the national card of the country in which they are located (in this case they must formalize the request and are included in the list of the foreign municipality of residence); or
going to Italy; or
by going to the Italian consulate of competence: in this case is delivered to the elector the card of one of the five Italian constituencies for the European Parliament.

After many years of petitions and harsh debates, at the end of 2001 a law was passed which allowed Italian citizens resident abroad to express their vote by correspondence to the Italian Parliament elections and national referendums (while for regional and administrative elections voters still have to go physically to Italy). The law stipulates that, in order to exercise this right, Italian migrants must register their residence abroad at the consulate of competence and be enrolled in the Register of Italians resident abroad (AIRE).

The first correspondence vote of Italians resident abroad took place on the occasion of the two referendums of 2003, while for the Chambers it was held with the 2006 political elections.

The situation before 2001
The Italian State guarantees a discount to citizens resident abroad on the train journey, but only on the national territory (i.e. from the border to the municipality in which its electoral seat is located); the additional costs from the place of residence to the Italian frontier are instead dependent on the elector. For this reason, until 2001 Italians resident in distant countries (such as the United States, Argentina or Australia) were