# 1976 Italian Senate election in Lombardy

Lombardy elected its seventh delegation to the Italian Senate on June 20, 1976. This election was a part of national Italian general election of 1976 even if, according to the Italian Constitution, every senatorial challenge in each Region is a single and independent race.
Lombardy obtained three more seats to the Senate, following the redistricting subsequent to the 1971 Census.
The election was won by the centrist Christian Democracy, as it happened at national level. Seven Lombard provinces gave a majority or at least a plurality to the winning party, while the agricultural Province of Pavia and Province of Mantua preferred the Italian Communist Party.

## Background

The Italian Communist Party, which had annexed the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity, strengthened under Enrico Berlinguer's leadership, reducing the gap with the Christian Democracy, which by its part obtained some votes from minor forces, as the Italian Liberal Party and the Italian Democratic Socialist Party, to face the red rising.

## Electoral system

The electoral system for the Senate was a strange hybrid which established a form of proportional representation into FPTP-like constituencies. A candidate needed a landslide victory of more than 65% of votes to obtain a direct mandate. All constituencies where this result was not reached entered into an at-large calculation based upon the D'Hondt method to distribute the seats between the parties, and candidates with the best percentages of suffrages inside their party list were elected.

## Results

| Party | votes | votes (%) | seats | swing |
| Christian Democracy | 2,170,893 | 41.8 | 21 | 1 |
| Italian Communist Party | 1,598,097 | 30.7 | 16 | 4 |
| Italian Socialist Party | 613,253 | 11.8 | 6 | = |
| Italian Social Movement | 210,741 | 4.1 | 2 | = |
| Italian Republican Party | 185,899 | 3.6 | 1 | = |
| Italian Democratic Socialist Party | 183,383 | 3.5 | 1 | 1 |
| Italian Liberal Party | 109,028 | 2.1 | 1 | 1 |
| Others | 136,997 | 2.4 | - | = |
| Total parties | 5,198,291 | 100.0 | 48 | 3 |
Sources: Italian Ministry of the Interior

### Constituencies

| N° | Constituency | Elected | Party | Votes % | Others |
| 1 | Bergamo | Angelo Castelli | Christian Democracy | 59.1% | |
| 2 | Clusone | Leandro Rampa | Christian Democracy | 63.8% | |
| 3 | Treviglio | Vincenzo Bombardieri | Christian Democracy | 57.3% | |
| 4 | Brescia | Mino Martinazzoli | Christian Democracy | 45.6% | |
| 5 | Breno | Giacomo Mazzoli | Christian Democracy | 55.3% | |
| 6 | Chiari | Mario Pedini | Christian Democracy | 57.3% | |
| 7 | Salò | Fabiano De Zan Egidio Ariosto | Christian Democracy Italian Democratic Socialist Party | 48.3% 5.8% | |
| 8 | Como | Luigi Borghi | Christian Democracy | 44.8% | |
| 9 | Lecco | Tommaso Morlino | Christian Democracy | 52.3% | |
| 10 | Cantù | Siro Lombardini | Christian Democracy | 49.6% | |
| 11 | Cremona | Vincenzo Vernaschi Giuseppe Garoli | Christian Democracy Italian Communist Party | 39.6% 36.5% | |
| 12 | Crema | Ferdinando Truzzi Giacomo Carnesella | Christian Democracy Italian Socialist Party | 49.0% 13.1% | Paolo Zanini (PCI) 28.4% |
| 13 | Mantua | Carlo Grazioli Tullia Romagnoli | Christian Democracy Italian Communist Party (Gsi) | 37.0% 35.8% | |
| 14 | Ostiglia | Agostino Zavattini Renato Colombo | Italian Communist Party Italian Socialist Party | 42.6% 14.8% | |
| 15 | Milan 1 | Luigi Noè Enzo Bettiza | Christian Democracy Italian Liberal Party | 37.1% 9.3% | |
| 16 | Milan 2 | Gastone Nencioni | Italian Social Movement | 9.0% | |
| 17 | Milan 3 | Vera Squarcialupi Giorgio Pisanò | Italian Communist Party Italian Social Movement | 28.9% 7.4% | |
| 18 | Milan 4 | Urbano Aletti Giovanni Spadolini | Christian Democracy Italian Republican Party | 36.5% 9.3% | |
| 19 | Milan 5 | Mario Venanzi | Italian Communist Party | 34.5% | |
| 20 | Milan 6 | Lelio Basso Carlo Polli | Italian Communist Party (Gsi) Italian Socialist Party | 36.9% 13.8% | |
| 21 | Abbiategrasso | Ada Valeria Ruhl Agostino Viviani | Italian Communist Party Italian Socialist Party | 38.0% 13.0% | |
| 22 | Rho | Giorgio Milani Bruno Luzzati | Italian Communist Party Italian Socialist Party | 39.6% 13.1% | |
| 23 | Monza | Vittorino Colombo Generoso Petrella | Christian Democracy Italian Communist Party | 41.0% 32.7% | |
| 24 | Vimercate | Giovanni Marcora Angelo Romanò | Christian Democracy Italian Communist Party (Gsi) | 43.6% 33.6% | |
| 25 | Lodi | Camillo Ripamonti Rodolfo Bollini | Christian Democracy Italian Communist Party | 39.6% 39.3% | |
| 26 | Pavia | Renato Cebrelli | Italian Communist Party | 39.5% | |
| 27 | Voghera | Giovanni Bellinzona | Italian Communist Party | 36.1% | |
| 28 | Vigevano | Armando Cossutta | Italian Communist Party | 45.3% | |
| 29 | Sondrio | Eugenio Tarabini Edoardo Catellani | Christian Democracy Italian Socialist Party | 52.1% 15.5% | |
| 30 | Varese | Aristide Marchetti Claudio Donelli | Christian Democracy Italian Communist Party | 40.8% 29.9% | |
| 31 | Busto Arsizio | Gian Pietro Rossi Modesto Merzario | Christian Democracy Italian Communist Party | 44.1% 29.6% | |
* No senator obtained a direct mandate. The electoral system was, in the other cases, a form of proportional representation and not a FPTP race: so candidates winning with a simple plurality could have (and usually had) a candidate (usually a Christian democrat) with more votes in their constituency.

### Substitutions

* Paolo Zanini for Crema (28.4%) replaced Lelio Basso in 1978. Reason: death.