Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 June 2025 in Italy will vote for 5 repeal referendums, including 4 relating to the world of work and one relating to the obtaining of Italian citizenship. To pass, the number of votes will have to reach the so -called quorumthat is, the minimum participation threshold required so that a referendum, a vote, can be considered valid. In Italy, for i Referendum abrogative (i.e. those who are used to choose whether to repeal and therefore delete a law in whole or in part, such as those of 8-9 June), is set at 50% plus one of those entitled (something like 50 million people in Italy), a very high percentage Compared to other European countries, where the quorum often does not exist or is lower.
Let’s imagine that a referendum is proposed in a city to reduce the price of public transport tickets. All citizens have the right to vote, but there is a rule: to make the vote valid, at least half of citizens + 1 must participate. In this city 100,000 citizens live with the right to vote and therefore called to vote, but only 4,000 go to the polls. Of these, 3,500 vote in favor of the reduction of the cost of the public means of transport and 500 are against. Unfortunately, since the minimum participation threshold (at least 5,001 voters) has not been reached, the referendum would not be valid and the ticket price would remain the same. This is what often happens also in our country: if the quorum is not reached, the vote in essence does not count.
The origins and the meaning of having the participation quorum
The quorum is foreseen by ours ConstitutiontoArticle 75; It was introduced after the Second World War, to protect democracy from any decisions made by a few people. The idea was to guarantee that only with a broad participation could a law be canceled. A principle understandable at the time, but which today can become an obstacle: it should ensure that important decisions are not taken from a too small minority of the population, and is structured so that the change, or the repeal of a law comes from a wide consent. Today, unfortunately, the quorum risks becoming a brake on change, because those who are against a referendum invites citizenship not to vote, so as to make him fail and in this way, even if millions of people instead exercise their right of expression, The vote counts nothing, since the quorum has not been reached. This practice not only makes the vote less effectivebut also involves A waste of public moneybecause organizing a referendum has a cost for the pockets of the state and therefore of the citizens who finance it.
In Italy for several years, it is proposed to lower the percentage of participation or even remove it, approaching most European countries, but for now the situation is still the same.
The quorum in other European countries
In Europe there is a tendency to enhance the vote of those who participatewithout punishing those who choose not to do it: in fact the quorum is not present in many European countries. Some countries such as Bulgaria, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia which are in the same Italian situation with the 50%participation quorum, or even the Lithuania that set it at 75%, but we specify that they are the exception. In conclusion, going to vote means defending your right to choose, it is one of the most powerful tools we have to change things, even when the rules – such as the quorum – may seem that they can make the path more difficult.
