How the Rosatellum turns votes into seats
Step by step, from the mark on the ballot to the proportional allocation, under law 165/2017 as it stands today. It is also the rule that draws the districts.
Step by step
There is only one mark. A cross on a list’s symbol counts at once for that list and for the single-member candidate it supports: they are not two votes, and you cannot cast only one of them.
Source: Art. 58, d.P.R. 361/1957
The single-member district goes to the candidate with the most valid votes, even if only one more than the runner-up: there is no run-off and no minimum share to reach. A tie goes to the younger candidate.
Source: Art. 77, d.P.R. 361/1957
That same cross goes into the list’s national vote total. If the mark is made only on the candidate’s name instead, the vote goes to the candidate and is shared among the lists backing them, in proportion to the votes each of them won in that district.
Source: Art. 58 and 77, d.P.R. 361/1957
The proportional allocation is open to lists with at least 3% of valid votes nationally and to coalitions with at least 10%, provided the coalition contains a list above 3%. Within a coalition, the votes of lists below 1% are not added to the coalition’s total.
Source: Art. 83, d.P.R. 361/1957
A list representing a recognised linguistic minority goes around the 3% threshold. It must stand only in a special-statute region whose statute provides particular protection for those minorities, and must have won at least 20% of valid votes in that region, or have had candidates elected in at least a quarter of the single-member districts of the constituency, rounded up.
The proportional seats are allocated by dividing the total of the qualifying votes by the number of seats to fill: each list or coalition takes as many seats as that quotient goes into its own total, and the seats left over go to the largest remainders. The allocation then works down into the constituencies and the individual multi-member districts, where candidates are elected in the order the list put them forward.
147 seats from the single-member districts and 245 from the multi-member ones make 392: the Chamber’s remaining 8 belong to the Overseas constituency. The law does not set those figures directly — it provides that the single-member districts are three eighths of the seats to be elected on national territory, rounded down. Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol follows a rule of its own: half the constituency’s seats, rounded up to the nearest even number — 4 of its 7.
Source: Art. 1, d.P.R. 361/1957
What does one mark on the ballot actually do?
A mark on a list’s symbol does two jobs at once: it counts for that list and for the single-member candidate the list supports.
You can instead mark only the candidate’s name. That vote is then shared among the lists backing that candidate, in proportion to the votes each of them won in the district. Split voting is not allowed: marking a candidate and a list that does not back them makes the ballot void.
Source: Art. 77, d.P.R. 361/1957
How is a single-member district won?
By the candidate with the most valid votes, even if only one more than the runner-up: there is no run-off and no minimum share to reach.
A tie goes to the younger candidate. There is one seat, and votes for the losing candidates produce nothing in that district: this is the part of the system that magnifies the gap between coalitions.
There are 147 such districts in the Chamber and 74 in the Senate — three eighths of the seats elected in Italy itself, redrawn by d.lgs. 177/2020 for the smaller parliament.
How the districts are drawn, and which one you vote in →
Source: Art. 77, d.P.R. 361/1957
Do the same rules apply everywhere in Italy?
No. Valle d’Aosta and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol have rules of their own, and in Valle d’Aosta there is no list vote at all.
In Valle d’Aosta each candidacy is filed with that candidate’s own symbol and the elector marks that symbol: there are no lists, no coalitions and no multi-member district, so neither the mark that counts for a list and a candidate at once nor the split vote exists there. The seat it produces is expressly excluded from the national proportional allocation. In the Senate the region elects a single senator and forms one single-member district.
Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol does not follow the three-eighths rule. In the Chamber it is divided into a number of single-member districts equal to half the constituency’s seats, rounded up to the nearest even number: 4 of its 7 seats, with the other 3 in the multi-member district. In the Senate the region forms six single-member districts, as many as the seats it is entitled to, so in practice nothing is left for it to allocate proportionally.
Source: Art. 92 and art. 83(1)(f), d.P.R. 361/1957, and art. 1(2), (3) and (4), d.lgs. 533/1993
What thresholds have to be cleared?
A list shares in the proportional seats if it wins at least 3% of valid votes nationally; a coalition if it wins at least 10% and contains at least one linked list that itself meets one of the conditions the law sets.
Those conditions are more than one. In the Chamber the linked list must have won at least 3% nationally, or — where it represents recognised linguistic minorities and stands only in a special-statute region whose statute or implementing rules provide particular protection for those minorities — at least 20% of valid votes in that region, or have had candidates elected in at least a quarter of the constituency’s single-member districts, rounded up. The Senate assembles its alternatives differently: 3% nationally, 20% of valid votes in at least one region — with no requirement to represent a minority — or, for minority lists, election in at least a quarter of the regional constituency’s single-member districts.
Within a coalition, the votes of lists below 1% are not added to the coalition’s total; those of lists between 1% and 3% are, even though such lists win no seats of their own. The 1% rule has exceptions of its own: in the Chamber what the law provides for lists representing recognised linguistic minorities is preserved, and in the Senate a list that has won at least 20% of valid votes in a region counts towards the coalition’s total regardless.
Source: Art. 83(1)(c) and (e), d.P.R. 361/1957, and art. 16-bis(1)(c) and (e), d.lgs. 533/1993
Who gets into the proportional allocation
The same thresholds, for the four ways of standing. The row to read whole is the third: a list inside a coalition faces two thresholds, not one.
Each row is a kind of competitor, not a party. The solid bar shows where that competitor wins seats of its own; the hollow bar, where its votes only help somebody else.
1% · votes to the coalition3% · seats for the list10% · coalition admitted
A list standing on its own
seats of its own
A coalition of lists
seats to share among its admitted lists
A list inside a coalition
votes count for the coalitionseats of its own
A list representing a recognised linguistic minority
share of valid votes cast nationally
A list standing on its own
It shares in the allocation with at least 3% of valid votes nationally. Below that its votes go nowhere at all.
A coalition of lists
It needs at least 10% of valid votes, plus at least one linked list that clears a threshold of its own: 3% nationally, or one of the routes reserved for minority lists.
A list inside a coalition
Two thresholds on one row. Below 1% the votes do not even reach the coalition; between 1% and 3% they do, but the list wins no seats of its own; from 3% up it does.
A list representing a recognised linguistic minority
No national threshold. It must stand only in a special-statute region that protects that minority, and clear one of the two conditions below.
Its two routes are not measured on this axis:
- at least 20% of valid votes in that region
- candidates elected in at least a quarter of the constituency’s single-member districts, rounded up
In the Senate the 3% and 10% thresholds are the same, but the alternatives are assembled differently: 20% in one region is enough even for a list representing no minority, and the 1% rule carries the same exception.
The percentages are always of the valid votes cast in the whole country, even where the alternative route is regional: this is a national threshold with two side doors, not a regional one.
What is the linguistic-minority exemption?
It is the rule that lets a list representing a recognised linguistic minority share in the seats without reaching 3% nationally.
The list must stand only in a special-statute region whose statute, or its implementing rules, provides particular protection for those minorities, and must have won at least 20% of valid votes in that region or have had candidates elected in at least a quarter of the single-member districts of the constituency, rounded up. It is what makes a minority that is large in its own region but small nationally representable.
Source: Art. 83, d.P.R. 361/1957
How are the proportional seats allocated?
In the Chamber the allocation is national: the totals of the qualifying coalitions and lists are added up, divided by the number of seats to fill, and that gives the national electoral quotient.
Each coalition or list gets as many seats as the quotient goes into its total; the seats left over go to the largest remainders. Each coalition’s seats are then divided among its qualifying member lists, and finally spread across the constituencies and the individual multi-member districts. The Senate follows the same procedure, but region by region, while the thresholds stay national.
Source: Art. 83, d.P.R. 361/1957 and art. 17, d.lgs. 533/1993
Who gets elected in the multi-member districts?
The candidates in the order the list put them forward: no preference votes are possible.
A multi-member district normally elects between three and eight deputies and between two and eight senators, and each slate in it holds between two and four names, alternating by gender. A candidate may stand in one single-member district only and in no more than five multi-member districts; if elected in both, they are taken to be elected in the single-member one. Across each list’s national set of single-member candidacies, and among its lead candidates, neither gender may exceed 60%.
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