Italy rejects constitutional reform: Detailed results of the referendum

Those who fantasized that a high turnout would produce a result mirroring the last general election were completely mistaken.

The constitutional reform proposed by the right to place the judiciary under government control has been rejected by Italians. The “No” vote won with 53.7 percent of the ballots. The “Yes” vote stalled at 46.3 percent, trailing by more than seven percentage points and coming up nearly two million votes short. 

Specifically, there were 14,461,074 votes for “No” (excluding two polling stations whose results were still missing as of 9:30 p.m. on Monday). This is a significant figure: the center-left had not reached a similar number of votes since 2008 under former leader Walter Veltroni. Predictions that forecasted a neck-and-neck race were also proven wrong. The “No” vote's victory was decisive despite a reckless electoral campaign featuring forays into crime news – such as the Garlasco murder case and the so-called “family in the woods” invited to the Senate by Senate President Ignazio La Russa – and the usual exploitation of the migration issue. This came even despite Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's media blitz, which included a guest appearance on rapper Fedez and Mr. Marra's podcast trying to win over the youth vote.

The vote, which was not supposed to be politicized, instead turned into the majority coalition's first defeat. This was further confirmed by an unexpectedly high turnout that neared 60 percent: the second-highest turnout for a confirmatory referendum since 1946. Participation was even higher than in the 2024 European elections, which did not reach 50 percent of eligible voters. By comparison, turnout at the last general election was 63.91 percent. 

In this referendum, to be precise, turnout was 58.93 percent, with peaks exceeding 65 percent in Umbria, Emilia-Romagna (66.97 percent) and Tuscany (66.27 percent). At the bottom of the turnout rankings were Calabria, Sicily and Basilicata, but with surprising figures: in the south, the gap between the two sides was much more pronounced. In Basilicata, the “No” vote won with 60.03 percent against 39.97 percent for “Yes.” In Sicily, it was 60.98 percent against 39.02 percent, and in Calabria, 57.23 percent compared to 42.77 percent for “Yes.” All three regions are governed by the center-right. 

A special mention goes to Campania, where two out of three voters rejected the Nordio-Meloni reform (65.23 percent). The case of Naples is emblematic, as the “No” vote triumphed there with a record 75.49 percent.

In the end, it was the large cities that drove both the turnout and the result. In Turin, there was a nearly 30-point gap: the “Yes” vote stalled at 35.27 percent while the “No” vote reached 64.73 percent. Similar percentages were seen in Bologna, where the “No” vote share was double that of “Yes,” standing at 68.4 percent. There was a gap of over 17 percentage points in Milan (where “Yes” was at 41.64 percent and “No” at 58.36 percent). There was a ten-point gap in Venice (“No” leading with 54.86 percent against 45.14 percent for “Yes”). In Genoa, the “No” vote approached 64 percent; in Florence, 67 percent; in Rome, over 60 percent. 

The same holds true in the south. We already mentioned Naples, but the vote in Palermo is just as striking (“Yes” at 31.04 percent versus 68.96 percent for “No”); it was similar in Bari, where “Yes” got 37.24 percent while “No” reached 62.76 percent. 

It was a landslide against the governing majority parties, whose leaders, fearing defeat, were urging citizens to go to the polls right up until the final minutes before the ballot boxes closed on Monday. The prime minister was the first to put out such a last-minute message, followed by Defense Minister Guido Crosetto and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. Many interpreted these late appeals as an early sign of nervousness within the supposedly united majority bloc (who were also joined in defeat this round by representatives from the so-called “Left for Yes” coalition). And that reading turned out to be correct.

The very first instant polls from pollsters – which were strikingly similar across the board – confirmed the government's fears, which were later officially sanctioned by the ballot counts. Those who fantasized that a high turnout would produce a result mirroring the last general election were completely mistaken. Even the north was divided: the “Yes” vote prevailed in only three northern regions (Veneto, Lombardy and Friuli-Venezia Giulia), while the “No” vote won in Piedmont, Valle d'Aosta and Liguria. 

The case of Pisa is peculiar: the Lega and the right wing coalition won there in both 2018 and 2023, yet the “No” vote secured 64 percent. The reform “wanted by Berlusconi” was rejected even in Arcore, the town home to the late former prime minister's villa, where the “No” vote won out. The same happened in Caivano, a town near Naples that has been the focal point of the right's securitarian-focused propaganda, to the point that the government named its decree placing troubled suburbs under special administration after the municipality.

According to analysts from the Opinio polling institute, the demographic profile of voters highlights a generational divide: the “No” vote reached 61.1 percent among those under 34, while the “Yes” vote won – by a narrow margin, at just above 50 percent – among those over 55. The mobilization of out-of-town college students, who turned out en masse, was crucial. 

The center-right coalition will also have to reflect on the status of its much-touted unity, which fractured at the polls despite pre-vote predictions: cohesion among the voters of the parties backing the “No” vote was stronger than that between the voters of the governing majority. According to the polling firm YouTrend, only five percent of voters from the Democratic Party, the Green and Left Alliance and the Five Star Movement voted “Yes,” whereas 11 percent of voters from the center-right and centrist parties voted “No.” 

Notably, 16 percent of Forza Italia voters and 14 percent of Lega voters cast their ballots against the reform.

© Il Manifesto Global