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Switzerland has always been one of the countries with the most Italian voters in the world: in 2016 it was third, after Argentina and Germany, with over 480,000 registered compatriots. When people vote for the new Parliament, a date that does not yet exist and that we explain in our article on in which month voting takes place for the 2027 parliamentary elections, the vast majority of them will do so from their kitchen table, between Zurich, Basel, Geneva and Ticino. The system works well if you know the few rules that matter. Here they are, in the order in which they are needed.
Italian citizens residing abroad and registered with AIRE, the registry of Italians residing abroad, vote by correspondence. Since 2022, people vote at eighteen years of age for both the Chamber and the Senate, because the 2021 constitutional reform lowered the age for electing senators. No application is necessary: the ballot pack is sent automatically by the consulate.
The weak point is the address. The pack arrives where AIRE believes you live, so anyone who has moved in recent years would do well to check their data now on the consular portal Fast It. The right time is now, not when the elections have already been called.
Once the date has been set, the consulate sends the pack no later than eighteen days before the vote. Inside there are the electoral certificate, the ballot or ballots, a small white envelope and a pre-stamped envelope with the consulate's address. You vote with a pen on the ballot, seal it in the small envelope and put everything in the stamped envelope together with the stub detached from the certificate.
The envelope must reach the consulate by 4 pm on the Thursday before the Sunday of voting in Italy. What counts is not the date of posting but the date of arrival, so it is advisable to post it as soon as it is completed. The embassies recommend sending it at least ten days before the vote. Anyone who has still not received anything fourteen days before the vote can go in person to their consulate and request a duplicate.
You can renounce postal voting and vote in person in your municipality of electoral registration, but only with written notification to the consulate. Here is the closest and least known deadline. If the legislature reaches its natural end, the deadline for choosing to vote in Italy is 31 December of the previous year, that is 31 December 2026. If instead the Chambers are dissolved early, for example for a spring vote, the deadline becomes ten days from the calling of the elections.
The option is valid for a single election and must be renewed each time. Those who exercise it no longer vote for the candidates of the Abroad constituency but for those of the Italian district in which their municipality is located. The journey is at their own expense.
Students, seconded workers and researchers who remain in Switzerland for at least three months without being registered with AIRE are voters temporarily abroad. They too can vote by post, but only on request: the application must be sent to the Italian municipality of electoral registration by the thirty-second day before the vote. They vote for the candidates of their Italian district, not for those of the Abroad constituency.
After the reduction in the number of parliamentarians, the Abroad constituency elects eight deputies and four senators. Today it is divided into four divisions and the Europe division, which includes Switzerland, elects three deputies and one senator. In 2022 those elected in Europe were Toni Ricciardi of the Democratic Party, Simone Billi of the centre-right and Federica Onori of the Five Star Movement in the Chamber, with Andrea Crisanti of the Democratic Party in the Senate. Ricciardi and Billi are both connected to Switzerland.
The reform approved by the Senate on 15 September 2026, which awaits the final vote of the Chamber expected around 8 October, does not affect the number of those elected abroad but changes the geography. For the Chamber, the divisions go from four to two: Europe remains autonomous, while South America, North and Central America, Africa, Asia, Oceania and Antarctica are combined into a single division. For the Senate, the entire Abroad constituency becomes a single district. The text also provides for an electoral office at each consulate to update the electoral rolls and tools based on blockchain to make postal voting more secure. Postal voting remains the ordinary method.
It is worth repeating, because the spring of 2027 will bring Rome, Milan, Naples, Turin and Bologna to the vote. For municipal and regional elections there is no form of voting from abroad: you vote only by returning to the municipality of electoral registration. The complete calendar is in our article on elections in Italy in 2027 and 2028.
The official rules are on the page of the Italian Embassy in Bern and on that of the Ministry of the Interior. Anyone who wants to receive an email reminder before each deadline can write to us at votazioni@tuttoitalia.ch indicating municipality and region of origin.
