On 4 December 2026, Italians residing abroad renew the Comites, the Committees of Italians Abroad. It is the only occasion in which you vote comfortably from home, without returning to Italy, and precisely for this reason it is also the one in which the right to vote is most easily lost: because the envelope with the ballot does not set off on its own, it must be requested. We have lined up everything you need to know, one step at a time.
The requirements are four and must all be met together. Being an Italian citizen is not enough, and neither is having lived in Switzerland for years: what counts is your AIRE position and residence in the consular district for at least six months at the date of the vote. Those with dual Italian-Swiss citizenship vote exactly like everyone else.
The dates to keep in mind are three, and they are all binding. On 4 November the deadline expires to request inclusion on the electoral roll, exactly one month before the vote. Between 5 and 14 November the consulates send out the voting packs. On 4 December, by midnight, the envelope with the vote must have already arrived at the consulate.
The application can be submitted in two ways, and neither requires showing up at the counter. The first is the Fast It portal, which has a dedicated function for the Comites elections. The second is the paper form, which you download from your consulate's website, fill in, sign and send by email, certified email or ordinary post, attaching a copy of a valid identity document.
Those in order receive at home a pack containing three things: the ballot with the lists and candidates of their district, a pre-paid return envelope and a sheet of instructions, which also states how many preferences can be expressed. The pack travels to the address on file with AIRE, and this is where thousands of votes are lost every time: those who have moved without notifying the consulate will receive nothing.
Voting takes a few minutes. You fill in the ballot, seal it in the small envelope, slip that envelope into the pre-paid one and post it immediately. Nothing else goes in the envelope, neither documents nor notes: the vote is secret and any identifying mark voids it.
The mistakes that cost you the vote are always the same four, and they are all avoidable. The AIRE address not updated, the application submitted after the deadline, the envelope posted too late because what counts is the arrival and not the postmark, and the ballot sent outside the inner envelope.
It is worth remembering why all this matters. The Comites are the recognised interlocutor of consulates and the embassy on consular services, schools, Italian language courses and assistance to fellow citizens in difficulty, they serve for five years and their elected members contribute to the composition of the General Council of Italians Abroad. In 2021 seven committees were elected in Switzerland, but with minimal numbers: 1,548 valid votes in Lugano, 1,045 in Basel, 900 in Geneva, 433 in Bern, against more than six hundred thousand Italians residing in the country. In the consular district of Zurich alone, the consulate today counts 240,159 fellow citizens. Which committees will actually be renewed on 4 December will be established by the calling decree, because in the meantime the consular network has been reorganised.
Those who want to be notified of upcoming Italian electoral deadlines, including those of their municipality of origin, can write to us at votazioni@tuttoitalia.ch stating their municipality and region of origin.
