A constitutional amendment is a modification of the constitution of a polity, organization or other type of entity. Amendments are often interwoven into the relevant sections of an existing constitution, directly altering the text. Conversely, they can be appended to the constitution as supplemental additions, thus changing the frame of government without altering the existing text of the document.
A supermajority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority rules in a democracy can help to prevent a majority from eroding fundamental rights of a minority, but they can also hamper efforts to respond to problems and encourage corrupt compromises at times when action is taken. Changes to constitutions, especially those with entrenched clauses, commonly require supermajority support in a legislature. Parliamentary procedure requires that any action of a deliberative assembly that may alter the rights of a minority have a supermajority requirement, such as a two-thirds vote. In consensus democracy the supermajority rule is applied in most cases.
Election law is a branch of public law that relates to the democratic processes, election of representatives and office holders, and referendums, through the regulation of the electoral system, voting rights, ballot access, election management bodies, election campaign, the division of the territory into electoral zones, the procedures for the registration of voters and candidacies, its financing and propaganda, voting, counting of votes, scrutiny, electoral disputes, electoral observation and all contentious matters derived from them. It is a discipline falling at the juncture of constitutional law and political science, and involves "the politics of law and the law of politics".
The 2006 Italian general election was held on 9 and 10 April 2006. Romano Prodi, leader of the centre-left coalition The Union, narrowly defeated the incumbent Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the centre-right coalition House of Freedoms. Initial exit polls suggested a victory for Prodi, but the results narrowed as the count progressed. On 11 April 2006, Prodi declared victory; Berlusconi never conceded defeat and an ensuing dispute formed.
The exhaustive ballot is a voting system used to elect a single winner. Under the exhaustive ballot the elector casts a single vote for their chosen candidate. However, if no candidate is supported by an overall majority of votes then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and a further round of voting occurs. This process is repeated for as many rounds as necessary until one candidate has a majority.
The 1994 Italian general election was held on 27 and 28 March 1994 to elect members of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic for the 12th legislature. Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right coalition won a large majority in the Chamber of Deputies but just missed winning a majority in the Senate. The Italian People's Party, the renamed Christian Democracy (DC), which had dominated Italian politics for almost half a century, was decimated. It took only 29 seats versus 206 for the DC two years earlier—easily the worst defeat a sitting government in Italy has ever suffered, and one of the worst ever suffered by a Western European governing party.
The Federalists and Liberal Democrats was a liberal and federalist political party in Italy, founded in 1994 as a parliamentary group in the Chamber of Deputies.
The politics of Aosta Valley, Italy, have since 1946 taken place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democracy, whereby the president of Aosta Valley has been the head of government, and of a pluralistic multi-party system. The regional government has exercised legislative power, vested in both the government and the Regional Council of Aosta Valley.
An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, non-profit organisations and informal organisations. These rules govern all aspects of the voting process: when elections occur, who is allowed to vote, who can stand as a candidate, how ballots are marked and cast, how the ballots are counted, how votes translate into the election outcome, limits on campaign spending, and other factors that can affect the result. Political electoral systems are defined by constitutions and electoral laws, are typically conducted by election commissions, and can use multiple types of elections for different offices.
Maria Elisabetta Alberti, known by her married name as Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, is an Italian lawyer and politician, serving as Minister fo Institutional Reforms since 2022. She was President of the Italian Senate from 2018 to 2022. She was the first woman ever to have held this position. Casellati is a long-time member of the liberal-conservative party Forza Italia and served as Undersecretary of Health and Justice in previous governments. In 2022, she was nominated as candidate for President of Italy by the centre-right coalition.
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. No party or coalition gained an absolute majority in the parliament, even though the centre-right coalition won a plurality of seats as a coalition, and the Five Star Movement (M5S) won a plurality of seats as an individual party.
The Venetian regional election of 2015 took place in Veneto on 31 May 2015, as part of a big round of regional elections in Italy. Venetian voters elected their President and their Regional Council, whose members had been reduced to 51, including the President.
Roberto Fico is an Italian politician. He is a member of the Five Star Movement, and served as the President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies from 2018 to 2022. Previously, he was the Chairman of the RAI Supervision Commission from 2013 to 2018.
The Italian electoral law of 2017, colloquially known by the nickname Rosatellum bis or simply Rosatellum after Ettore Rosato, the Democratic Party (PD) leader in the Chamber of Deputies who first proposed the new law, is a parallel voting system, which acts as a mixed electoral system, with 37% of seats allocated using a first-past-the-post electoral system and 63% using a proportional method, with one round of voting. The Chamber and Senate of the Republic did not differ in the way they allocated the proportional seats, both using the largest remainder method of allocating seats.
The Italian general election of 2018 took place on 4 March 2018.
The 2019 Abruzzo regional election took place on 10 February 2019. The election was for all 29 elected seats of the Regional Council of Abruzzo as well as the President of the region who, along with the second placed presidential candidate, would also become members of the Regional Council.
The 2022 Italian general election took place on 25 September 2022. In its two single-seat constituencies, Aosta Valley elected Franco Manes to the Chamber of Deputies and Nicoletta Spelgatti to the Senate of the Republic. Spelgatti, a former president of Aosta Valley, was the first Valdostan woman elected to the Senate.
The election of the President of the Senate of the Republic who would serve through the Legislature XIX of Italy took place on 13 October 2022, over three weeks after the 2022 Italian general election. It resulted in Ignazio La Russa being elected President.
The election of the President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies who would serve through the legislature XIX of Italy took place on 13 and 14 October 2022, almost four weeks after the 2022 Italian general election. Lorenzo Fontana, a member of the Lega was elected on the fourth ballot with 222 votes.
The election for the President of the Senate of the Republic who would serve through the legislature XVIII of Italy took place on 23 and 24 March 2018, over three weeks after the 2018 Italian general election. It took place by secret ballot, as required by the assembly's standing orders. Former President of Italy Giorgio Napolitano, being the oldest Senator present, served as the acting presiding officer.
