The referendum held in Italy on relaxing citizenship rules and enhancing workers’ rights was declared invalid.
About 30% of voters attend – far from the 50% threshold required for voting constraints – begins on Sunday and until Monday at 15:00 (14:00 BST).
The ballot has five questions, covering different issues, including a proposal to halve the length of time an individual lives in Italy before applying for 10 to 5 years of citizenship.
The referendum was initiated by the initiative of citizens and supported by civil society groups and trade unions, all of whom participated in the Yes vote.
For them, the result – the level of turnout in areas such as Sicily and Calabria is as low as 22%) will be a blow.
Meeting the 50% threshold is always a struggle – especially because in the Italian government led by tough Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, referendum or active discourage people from voting.
“Whether it’s just above 30% or below 30%, it’s a low number, below the expectations and goals set by the promoters,” Lorenzo Pregliasco, founder of political voting company YouTubeTrend, told Italy’s Skytg24.
Last week, Meloni announced that she would boycott the vote, declaring Italy’s existing citizenship law “excellent” and “very open”. She visited a polling station in Rome on Sunday but did not vote.
But activists believe that the 10-year wait time for citizenship is too long, and reducing the demand to five years will keep Italy in line with many European neighbors.
Shortly after the polls ended, Meloni’s Italian Brothers (FDI) party posted an image of an opposition leader on Instagram with the caption: “You’re lost!”
“The only real goal of this referendum is to overthrow the Meloni government. Ultimately, despite the Italians overthrow you,” the post reads.
Pina Picierno of the Opposition Democratic Party (PD) said the referendum was a “deep, serious and avoidable failure” and said that the failure to reach the 50% threshold was a “giant gift to Giorgia Meloni”.
One million signatures are required to hold a referendum in Italy. However, there are now calls for raising that threshold to reduce the number of votes to the public.
“We spent a lot of money to remit … millions of foreign votes for Italians (expats) to vote, and they were wasted,” Foreign Secretary Antonio Tajani said on Monday.
Of the 78 referendums held in Italy since World War II, only half have attracted enough votes to make it binding.
89% of the first Italians held on June 2, 1946 participated in the poll, and more than half of the votes replaced the monarchy with the Republic.
In the following years, referendums on abortion and divorce were also successfully held.
The last referendum to reach the required threshold was the legal vote for privatized water services in 2011.
