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Half-faced, we looked at each other from afar, in section, where we once went to vote in groups, with friends, grandmother, cousins, or with children running through the school corridors. Today someone asks timidly: “But these pencils with which we vote, do you sanitize them after each vote?” And the president, patient look: “Excuse me, sir, if you have just cleaned your hands before entering, you will touch this pencil without infecting it in any case. Right?” Tics, fears. Small Sunday fashions that will remain in the electoral history of the Homeland for a long time. So the participation grows at night, between surmountable unforeseen events and the close surveillance of the Ministry of the Interior (which keeps its fingers secret for today).
In the end, four out of ten Italians took their electoral card yesterday and entered the booth to comment on the reduction in the number of parliamentarians or to choose, where it was planned, their local and regional administrators. In 1820, quarantined, they took advantage of the vote of the house, and among them also Silvio Berlusconi “isolated” in Arcore.
“Many expected – reason from the Interior Ministry – that the fear of contagion from Covid would keep Italians away from the polls. And instead it was not like that: the security and prevention measures that have been provided throughout Italy are working, with The mask Mandatory and careful sanitation. And the organizational machine was maintained: all seats were enabled. “But what an effort, however.” A night like this – they say from the Ministry – is not exactly the one that normally precedes the elections ” .
Obstacle course. All at 5 am. The Municipality of Rome was forced to replace 760 presidents of the approximately 2,600 seats. “Large number covered in record time. We also had to call 250 local police officers in Rome – said Mayor Virginia Raggi – many of them overnight.” In Naples, surrogacy involved 250 presidents out of 860. In Turin, 506 presidents out of 919 and cashiers 1,487 out of 2,800.
“The one with the offices – said Mayor Chiara Appendino – was a huge job, which lasted almost all night”. Milan had to replace 178 presidents and 1,620 tellers. “I believe – explained Mayor Giuseppe Sala – that it is the effect of fear related to Covid. Fortunately, the city has responded.” Instead, the tam-tam between friends and acquaintances served to compensate for the “gap” created at the Moscati secondary school in Garbatella, south of Rome, which ran the risk of closing one of the 5 sections: WhatsApp chain and at 8 the miracle was accomplished, three tellers, president and secretary on the track.
Defections and diseases: some are transitory, others lead to Covid diagnoses. In Calendasco, a town in the Piacenza area, Mayor Filippo Zangrandi does not panic and announces via Facebook: “Election operations in seat 2 are suspended due to Covid until 1.30pm. They will resume in the new seat. , with new staff “.
One of the tellers had tested positive, by a swab made as a precaution 36 hours before: all the colleagues at the polling station go to isolation, instead, the voters calm down. “As they all voted masked, there is no risk.” In Veneto, the region of virologist Andrea Crisanti, in Padua and the province, up to 1,300 members of electoral staff have been smeared: 2 positive for coronavirus. In Genoa, an electoral college closed after the president had spent a night with a fever and suspicious symptoms (swab done immediately: negative). In contrast, in Sanremo, he had to fight with the obstinacy of a voter who did not want to sanitize his fingers: he was enraged, even the intervention of the police was needed. Reason? Mystery. But in the end he was convinced.
In some cases, disabled voters, faced with barriers never before faced, paid the price for re-layout of the ballot boxes in larger spaces. As the professor of the Neapolitan University Federico II, Salvatore Prisco, denounces: “I have just returned, outraged, having voted. The seats were in a school whose entrance was accessed after many steps and, furthermore, placed on the first floor.”
And there is no shortage of dirty voter shadows. In Giugliano, in the Neapolitan area, one of the largest Italian municipalities called for the administrative vote in this round, and one of the only 6 where there is a mayoral candidate born from the union between Pd and 5S, the complaint is triggered In the scorching heat of 13 for a so-called “feedback point of sale” off the seat in via Pigna. The center-right candidate, Pietro Maisto, denounces the strange movement. Which is almost “blatant” testimony to the inexplicable comings and goings of voters around a car, which is parked out there, tires on the ground, uninsured vehicle. Two men with shoulder bags get in and out of the car. When they ask for documents, one escapes, the other is defended by a brother out loud: “We don’t buy votes, it’s you, politics is dirty.”
Both Maisto and Alessandra Iannone of the Democratic Party, along with candidate Nicola Pirozzi, ask for clarification and clarity. “Giugliano has the right to a future of clean politics, free and democratic vote. We will continue this battle too, along the common path that has just begun with the young companions of the 5.” Meanwhile, another seat a scrutineer passes out. Seat closed. But it was just the heat.
