Who can stand, and in how many districts at once
The age you need, why the same name appears on ballots hundreds of kilometres apart, and which district they end up elected in.
How old do you have to be to stand?
Twenty-five for the Chamber, forty for the Senate. Those thresholds are in the Constitution rather than in the electoral law, so changing them would take a constitutional law.
You can vote at eighteen for both chambers. Until constitutional law 1/2021 the Senate could only be voted for at twenty-five; since then the two chambers share an electorate, which is why the 2022 turnout figures are identical in the ministry’s two files.
The three ages
Four rights on one ruler. Between being able to vote for the Senate and being able to stand for it there are twenty-two years.
Each bar starts at the age the right is acquired and never ends: there is no upper limit, either on voting or on standing.
18 · you can vote25 · Chamber40 · Senate
Voting, for the Chamber and for the Senate
Standing for the Chamber
Standing for the Senate
Voting for the Senate, until 2021
age reached, in years
Voting, for the Chamber and for the Senate
Eighteen years old for both chambers. That has only been true since 2021.
Standing for the Chamber
Twenty-five years old on polling day. The threshold is in the Constitution, not in the electoral law.
Standing for the Senate
Forty years old. It is the highest age the Constitution sets for any elected office, and changing it would take a constitutional law.
Voting for the Senate, until 2021
Before constitutional law 1/2021 the Senate could only be voted for at twenty-five: the two chambers had different electorates. Since then they share one, which is why the 2022 turnout figures are identical in the ministry’s two files.
The three thresholds are in articles 56 and 58 of the Constitution rather than in the electoral law: changing one takes a constitutional law, which is exactly what it took in 2021 to lower the Senate vote to eighteen.
There is no upper age limit on any of the four rows.
Can the same person stand in more than one district?
Yes, and for party leaderships it is routine: up to five multi-member districts under the same symbol, plus one single-member district.
It is not a loophole — the law provides for it expressly. It lets a party place someone it means to have in parliament on several lists at once, without spending the top spot in a single district on them.
Source: Art. 19, d.P.R. 361/1957
What if they are elected in several districts at once?
It depends which. Elected in both a single-member district and a multi-member one, they take the single-member seat.
Elected in several multi-member districts, they are declared in the one where their list did worst. They do not choose, and the rule runs the way that surprises people: the seat comes from the weakest district, not the strongest. The districts where the list did well are left to the candidates below them, instead of being taken by the name that was at the top of every list.
How the Rosatellum turns votes into seats →
Source: Art. 85, d.P.R. 361/1957
Elected in five districts, seated in the weakest
The same name can head five lists. The seat comes from the district where the list did worst.
Elected in a single-member district too? Then that is the seat
The single-member rule comes before everything else: someone elected in both a single-member and a multi-member district takes the single-member seat, and the ranking below does not apply.
The five multi-member districts, ranked by the list’s result
where the list did best
District A
the seat passes to the next candidate on the list
District B
the seat passes to the next candidate on the list
District C
the seat passes to the next candidate on the list
District D
the seat passes to the next candidate on the list
District E
declared elected here
where the list did worst
Neither the candidate nor the party chooses: the law does, and it chooses the way nobody expects. By giving up the strong districts, the party puts four more names into parliament instead of one.
The districts are ranked, not measured: the law looks only at which result is the lowest, not by how much.
Are there rules about candidates’ gender?
Three of them. Within each multi-member district list the names alternate between men and women, on pain of the list being rejected.
Across a region’s single-member candidates neither gender may exceed 60 per cent, and the same cap applies to the top-of-list positions in the multi-member districts.
Those rules interact with multiple candidacy: a woman heading five lists takes five first places, and the alternation rule puts a man immediately below her in all five.
Source: Art. 9, d.lgs. 533/1993
The three gender rules on a list
Alternation inside every list, and a 60 % cap on two sets of candidacies. Together they also decide who comes second.
Alternation inside every multi-member district list
WwomanMmantop of list
One person may head the list in five districts: they take five first places, and alternation puts a candidate of the other gender immediately below them in all five.
Neither gender above 60 %
60 %
allowedlist rejected
one gender’s share of the whole set of candidacies
- the candidates in one region’s single-member districts
- the top-of-list positions in that region’s multi-member districts
Breaking the alternation rule gets the list rejected: it is not a target but a formal requirement the electoral office checks when the list is filed.
The 60 % cap is worked out per region rather than per district, and it binds both ways: it is a ceiling on each of the two genders, not a quota reserved for one.
Do you have to live in the district you stand in?
No. Nothing requires it, which is why a candidate can be put up in a region they have never lived in.
In this system the tie to a place is not guaranteed by a rule: it is decided by the party when it draws up the lists.
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