The Chamber rejects the preliminary objections, electoral law heading toward secret ballot

The Chamber has rejected the five preliminary objections on constitutionality raised by the opposition regarding the electoral law reform, already amended by the Senate. The vote, out of 380 voting, closed with 229 against and 151 in favor of the objections: a clear margin that opens the way to the next stages of the process.

The government will call three confidence votes on Tuesday 6 and Wednesday 7 October. Final declarations of vote, by secret ballot, are scheduled for Thursday 8 October: a step that will close — barring surprises in the secret vote, by definition less predictable than an open one — a parliamentary process that began months ago.

Among the opposition, +Europa leader Riccardo Magi has chosen the most radical form of protest available to a parliamentarian: a hunger strike. Magi described the reform as an attempt to turn a minority in the country into an overwhelming majority in Parliament, linking his personal initiative to the substance of the measure rather than to a procedural issue.

The fact that the government must resort to three consecutive confidence votes in two days signals how contentious the text remains even after passing the Senate: this is not a routine act, but a tool that shields the measure against obstructionist amendments in the final phase. The secret ballot scheduled for the final vote on 8 October, however, introduces an element of uncertainty that confidence votes cannot eliminate: unlike an open vote, the secret ballot allows for untraceable defections within the majorities themselves.

The sequence of the coming days is thus marked by three close appointments: the two confidence votes on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the secret vote on Thursday. It is within that three-day window that it will be decided whether the reform, already passed by the Senate, will become law of the State or whether its passage through the Chamber will introduce a further variable to the final outcome.