The reform of the electoral law under discussion at the House could soon change the way Italian parliamentarians are elected abroad. This is what emerges from some indiscretions circulated in recent days: the number would remain that fixed by the constitution despite the cut of parliamentarians: eight deputies and four senators, but according to the reconstructions, the majority would be evaluating an amendment to cancel the current four divisions of the foreign constituency, replacing them with a single world constituency in the Senate and two only colleges in the House: Europe and Extra-Europe. The debate in the House should resume on 14 July, with quota times and votes on amendments.
Today the vote of Italians abroad is governed by Law 459 of 2001, which divides the foreign constituency into four divisions: Europe, South America, North and Central America, and Africa, Asia, Oceania and Antarctica. The same law stipulates that in each division at least one MP and a senator is elected, while the other seats are distributed in proportion to the number of Italian citizens resident in the different areas. This is to prevent larger communities from absorbing all available representation. With the current system, two MPs and a senator are today in North America.
The text issued by the Constitutional Affairs Commission did not contain any modification of this type and those on the foreign vote concerned exclusively with voting methods, in order to make that way more secure. The reconstructions published after the free way in the Commission indicated that the Foreign Circumscriptions were among the themes that the majority could have resumed directly in the Chamber: in the Commission, in fact, the law was dismissed after the only discussion of less than 50% of the amendments tabled through the so-called procedure of the “cutting”, a tool used very rarely and which eliminated the possibility of discussing the majority of the amendments tabled. In any case, in the Commission’s work, no amendment on the allocations for voting abroad has been tabled, but now we are talking about a ‘blitz’ of the majority on foreign colleges, with an amendment which will be submitted directly for discussion in the Chamber without passing by the Commission.
But how would the possible reorganization of the distributions work? In the Senate, the most important hypothesis would be the creation of a single global college to elect all four foreign constituencies. From afar it might seem like a more proportional solution: all voters abroad in the same basin, all candidates in the same competition. But the vote of preference would immediately change the weight of the different communities. According to data published in January 2026 on the basis of the decree of the Ministry of the Interior, in Europe resides 3.523,854 Italian citizens registered in the electoral lists abroad, more than half of the total. By comparison, in North and Central America there are 578,615, in Africa, Asia, Oceania and Antarctica 338,290. In a single college, European candidates would therefore leave with a much larger electoral basin than others and in fact would be elected only Europeans. It would also undermine the elected-elected relationship, because no voter could reasonably hold relations with all the Italian communities in the world, in potential violation of the constitutional principle of representation. The reasons for this change would be that with the new distribution with a single world college Brothers of Italy would earn an extra senator.
At the House, the hypothesis would be different but would produce a similar effect. Europe would remain alone, while all countries outside Europe would end up in a single Extra-Europe College. In that college, however, South America would have an incomparable weight compared to other areas: 2,189.525 Italian residents, against the 578,615 of North and Central America and the 338,290 of the Africa, Asia, Oceania and Antarctica area. In short, a candidate from the United States or Canada could still be present but, with a much wider South American basin, it would become very difficult to compete evenly with a candidate of that distribution.
The difference is seen by looking at the current composition of the elect abroad. In the current legislature, North and Central America has two deputies, Andrea Di Giuseppe, at the altitude of Fratelli D’Italia, and Christian Di Sanzo at PD, and a senator, Francesca La Marca, always PD. The area Africa, Asia, Oceania and Antarctica has a congressman, Nicola Carè del PD, and a senator, Francesco Giacobbe, also of the PD. With larger divisions, these communities would not disappear from the list of voters, but could not elect anyone, losing any representation in Parliament to the benefit of the South American communities.
Moreover, as the Huffington Post points out in an article by Alfonso Raimo published on 8 July, in South America the local parties such as MAIE (Italian Association Movement in the East) and USEI (South American Union Emigrants Italians), who usually train with the center-right, have a lot followed and this would allow the current majority to benefit in the race to the current foreign seats at the expense of the fact that the.
It should also be said, for the sake of the record, that an Extra-Europe college dominated in numbers from South America could favour the lists and electoral networks more rooted in that area, including the USEI, the movement with which Adriano Cario had been elected, then declined from the Senate in 2021 after the dispute of his election in the distribution of South America for electoral broils, the only case in the history of the Republic.
L’articolo Election law could erase North American representation in Parliament proviene da IlNewyorkese.
