page_title: 2018 Italian general election
section_title: New electoral system
hierarchical_section_title: 2018 Italian general election / New electoral system
caption_attribution_description: English: Palazzo di Montecitorio in Rome/Italy
context_page_description: The 2018 Italian general election was held on 4 March 2018 after the Italian Parliament was dissolved by President Sergio Mattarella on 28 December 2017.
  Voters were electing the 630 members of the Chamber of Deputies and the 315 elective members of the Senate of the Republic for the 18th legislature of the Italian Republic since 1948. The election took place concurrently with the Lombard and Lazio regional elections.
  The centre-right coalition, whose main party was the right-wing League led by Matteo Salvini, emerged with a plurality of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate, while the anti-establishment Five Star Movement led by Luigi Di Maio became the party with the largest number of votes. The centre-left coalition, led by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, came third. However, no political group or party won an outright majority, resulting in a hung parliament.
  After three months of negotiation, a coalition was finally formed on 1 June between the M5S and the League, whose leaders both became Deputy Prime Ministers in a government led by the M5S-linked independent Giuseppe Conte as Prime Minister.
context_section_description: As a consequence of the 2016 constitutional referendum and of two different sentences of the Constitutional Court, the electoral laws for the two houses of the Italian Parliament lacked uniformity. In October 2017, the PD, AP, FI, the LN and minor parties agreed on a new electoral law, which was approved by the Chamber of Deputies with 375 votes in favour and 215 against and by the Senate with 214 votes against 61. The reform was opposed by the M5S, the MDP, SI, FdI and minor parties.
  The so-called Rosatellum bis, after Ettore Rosato (PD leader in the Chamber), is a mixed system, with 37% of seats allocated using a first-past-the-post voting and 63% using the proportional largest remainder method, with one round of voting.
  The 630 deputies will be elected as follows:
  232 in single-member constituencies, by plurality;
  386 in multi-member constituencies, by national proportional representation;
  12 in multi-member abroad constituencies, by constituency proportional representation.
  The 315 elective senators will be elected as follows:
  116 in single-member constituencies, by plurality;
  193 in multi-member constituencies, by regional proportional representation;
  6 in multi-member abroad constituencies, by constituency proportional representation.
  A small, variable number of senators for life will also be members of the Senate.
  For Italian residents, each house members will be elected in single ballots, including the constituency candidate and his/her supporting party lists. In each single-member constituency the deputy/senator is elected on a plurality basis, while the seats in multi-member constituencies will be allocated nationally. In order to be calculated in single-member constituency results, parties need to obtain at least 1% of the national vote. In order to receive seats in multi-member constituencies, parties need to obtain at least 3% of the national vote. Elects from multi-member constituencies will come from closed lists.
  The voting paper, which is a single one for the first-past-the-post and the proportional systems, shows the names of the candidates to single-member constituencies and, in close conjunction with them, the symbols of the linked lists for the proportional part, each one with a list of the relative candidates.
  The voter will be able to cast their vote in three different ways:
  Drawing a sign on the symbol of a list: in this case the vote extends to the candidate in the single-member constituency which is supported by that list.
  Drawing a sign on the name of the candidate of the single-member constituency and another one on the symbol of one list that supports them: the result is the same as that described above; it is not allowed, under penalty of annulment, the panachage, so the voter can not vote simultaneously for a candidate in the FPTP constituency and for a list which is not linked to them.
  Drawing a sign only on the name of the candidate for the FPTP constituency, without indicating any list: in this case, the vote is valid for the candidate in the single-member constituency and also automatically extended to the list that supports them; if that candidate is however connected to several lists, the vote is divided proportionally between them, based on the votes that each one has obtained in that constituency.
caption: Palazzo Montecitorio, seat of the Chamber of Deputies
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon DIGITAL IXUS 800 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2009:03:05 15:53:44", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "202", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[41, 54, 5/2]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "E", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[12, 28, 41]", "GPS GPSMapDatum": "WGS-84", "Image GPSInfo": "2896", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "3112", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5588", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:03:05 15:53:44", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:03:05 15:53:44", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "149/16", "EXIF ApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "29/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2816", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2112", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2816", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2112", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2842", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "112640/9", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2112000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}