The Italian referendum on relaxing civil rights rules and strengthening workers’ rights has been declared invalid.
Approximately 30% of voters participated – a fairly shortfall at the voting-binding 50% threshold – started on Sunday and ran until 15:00 (14:00 BST) on Monday.
The vote featured five questions covering a variety of issues, including a proposal to cut the time an individual has to live in Italy before applying for citizenship between 10 and 5 years.
The referendum was launched by a civic initiative, supported by civil society groups and trade unions, and all campaigned for a YES vote.
For them, the outcome was seen as low as 22% in areas like Sicily and Calabria, but the outcome would come as a blow.
To reach the 50% threshold will always be a struggle – especially because the Italian government led by right-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, has largely ignored the referendum or people have actively discouraged the vote.
“Whether it’s just above 30% or just below 30%, this is a low figure below the expectations and targets set by the promoters,” Lorenzo Pregliasco, founder of political voting company YouTrend, told SkyTG24 in Italy.
Last week, Meloni announced he would boycott the vote, declaring Italy’s existing citizenship laws “excellent” and “very open.” She visited a polling station in Rome on Sunday, but did not vote.
However, activists argued that the 10-year wait to apply for citizenship was too long, and that by reducing the requirement to five years, he would take many of his European neighbors and Italy.
Shortly after the polls were shut down, Meloni’s Italian Brothers (FDI) party posted an image of the opposition leader on Instagram with the caption, “You’re lost!”
“The only real purpose of this referendum was to defeat the Meloni government, although the Italians ultimately defeated you,” the post read.
Opposition Democrats (PD) Pina Picaerno said the referendum was a “deep, serious and avoidable defeat,” calling the failure to reach the 50% threshold “a huge gift for Giorgia Meloni.”
A half million signatures are required to call the Italian referendum. However, it is currently necessary to increase that threshold to reduce the number of votes that are commonly voted.
“We sent a lot of money… millions of votes overseas for Italian. [expats] To vote, and they were wasted,” Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Monday.
Since World War II, only about half of the 78 referendums held in Italy have collected enough votes to bind them.
The first, held on June 2, 1946, saw 89% of Italians take part in the polls and more than half of those votes replaced the monarchy with a republic.
Later, a referendum on abortion and divorce was also held normally.
The last referendum to reach the required threshold was a 2011 vote on the law privatizing water services.
