If there was a referendum to abolish the referendums, the Italians would probably make a collective effort and they would all go to the polls. This provocative and legally devoid of any sense and foam was formed in our mind around 2pm on Monday 9 June 2025, when an hour was still missing at the end of the umpteenth rounded referendum of the last thirty years of Italian history.

A very predictable destiny, also according to many of the few who participated in the vote, yet again someone has hoped for us. Personally, we are part of the host of those who went to the polls with very little trust in achieving the quorum.

Moreover, the thought on the referendum to abolish the referendums came to mind by scrolling through Wikipedia the list of the repeal referendums on which the Italians were called to express themselves as required by the Constitution.

The previous referendums: in 30 years only a quorum achieved

A list that begins with the famous referendum on the divorce of 1974, on which today there is a certain ignorance, because many think that that referendum established divorce in Italy, when instead it was promoted by Catholic jurists with the support of CEI, DC and MSI to repeal the divorce established in 1970 thanks to a law resulting from the agreement between leftist and liberal parties.

That referendum had a turnout greater than 87%, a data never approached, but in any case among more or less memorable questions the 50% quorum was reached uninterruptedly from ’74 to ’78, from 81 (with the two opposite questions to expand or restrict the limits of law 194 on abortion) to 85 and until 1987.

In 1990 there was the first time in which the quorum was not reached, for the referendums on hunting, then the majority of Italians chose to express itself in 1991 with the reduction of preferences for the Chamber and between 1993 and 1995 with two reference sheets on various topics, from financing to parties to the privatization of Rai, from the decriminalization of light drugs to advertising interruptions on TV.

Then, since 11 June 1995, the Italians preferred to go to the beach, in the mountains, at the cinema or home in 1997, in 1999, in 2000, in 2003, in 2005, in 2009, in 2016, in 2022 and now in 2025.

The only exception in these thirty years dates back to 12-13 June 2011, when 54.8% of Italians went to vote on the two referendums of the common good water committee and the two referendums of Italy of Di Pietro’s values ​​on the production of nuclear energy and on the legitimate impediment of the high offices of the state.

The constant drop in turnout: opinions and objective data

For the rest, our country has spent hundreds of millions of euros to make referendum consultations that have not given any results. Assisted procreation, workers ‘rights, magistrates’ assignments, electoral laws, drills: there have been topics of interest potentially, but never enough to reach the quorum and therefore give meaning to what, in theory, should be the most popular constitutional tool, the one in which citizens can somehow decide more directly on the laws that regulate our society.

And it could be discussed for a long time on the reasons for this apparently paradoxical disaffection of the Italians towards the repeal referendums: the writer this article thinks that some influence have had those referendum consultations that Pannella’s radicals in the 90s promoted almost every year on a large number of themes, sometimes even rather abstruse for voters, but is only a personal opinion.

However, there are objective elements to underline: the general trend that for years in Italy sees a drop in the turnout of any type of vote, and the consequent strategy of those who, from time to time, would like to keep in force what the referendums want to repeal.

That you vote for a city council, the presidency of a region, the composition of the parliament or any repealed or constitutional referendum, almost every time there is a drop in the turnout compared to the previous time: in the past political elections voted 63.9%of Italians, in 2018 72.9%, in 2013 75.2%, in 2008.6%, in 2006 84.2%are more than twenty points of falling. twenty years.

The invitations to go to the sea are a sinister bipartisan makeup

So what did politicians of every deployment have done (how does Giorgia Meloni’s post shows in 2016 taken by Giuseppe Conte, to give an example) when it was the turn of dealing with referendum campaigns on laws that wanted to keep as they were? They were simply silent, in one way or another. They said on some occasions that they did not share the reasons for the referendum, they made a few jokes on where they spent the weekend and, when the definitive results on the unreserved quorum arrived, the victory with phrases such as “the Italians understood that this referendum did not make sense and chose to give a signal to those who had promoted it”.

On the other hand, when what they should say is: “We can be able to use the growing disinterest of Italians for the polls, thus, instead of explaining why the law subjected to referendum had to be maintained, we only had to convince some other Italians that vote is useless and we won in flakingness”.

And patience if in this way a glorious institute such as the referendum and, more generally, the policy itself intended as a form of democratic participation is emptied of meaning.

For the referendum, a constitutional reform is needed, or morality

But then, if all the political forces from time to time have adopted this strategy, and then (or first) to indign themselves when to promote abstention are the others – to the government or not they are – what sense does it make to continue to keep this institute that costs only a lot of money and almost never produces an effect? To make the spite of the opposite political sides at the expense of the community?

As the provocative thought on the referendum demonstrates to abolish the referendums, we are not here to indicate legal reform tools, but sooner or later some reform must be there if you want to save the referendum from this sad destiny: if not a constitutional reform, at least one morale.