Split
Enough places in schools: is it the right time? No, and maybe it never will be. Classes for the 2022/2023 school year begin between September 8th and 12th (depending on the region). Only a few days will pass before the electoral departments have to make room for the vote on September 25th. “Stop the seats in the schools,” demands the Viminale and the mayors, the president of the National Association of Principals, Antonello Giannelli. 88% of the more than 61,000 polling stations are actually in elementary, middle or high school classrooms. It won’t happen, not this time.
In local elections a few years ago, space was given to a smart initiative to look for sites other than institutes, given the difficulties the pandemic had caused during the school year, but only 62 administrations had decided to send voters to vote elsewhere than the usual classes. A €2 million fund was set up specifically to pay out contributions to municipalities that have identified alternative solutions to electoral counseling. The criteria and modalities for granting the funding were delegated in a decree of the Minister of the Interior to be adopted in consultation with the Minister of Economy and Finance. But more than circulars, we need a change in mentality and the modernization of the electoral system.
The voting rounds are frequent (in fact, almost every year political, regional, local, European referendums are voted on, without counting the additions) and each time there is in fact no time to find alternative solutions for the schools. We’re voting in less than two months. It doesn’t seem like a sci-fi venture to permanently move the seats to other public places so kids and teens can focus on school without disrupting an essential service. Logistically, every choice is no joke, the list of activities necessary to turn a classroom into a seat is long: clearing rooms, rearranging tables, returning all teaching materials to the students, extraordinary cleaning, disinfestation and sanitation of the premises . Anachronistic to let the whole system weigh on the schools, but so be it.
The alternatives? No one says that in Iran in 2008, when there were no suitable seats, buses parked on the street were voted on what to get. But the list of plausible locations is long and almost banal in its simplicity: municipal offices and council chambers; libraries and reading rooms; Gymnasiums and sports facilities, including school gymnasiums. But also multipurpose centers and facilities; leisure and sports clubs; After work rooms; exhibition and trade fair rooms; Playroom; clinics and other facilities no longer intended for medical purposes; Areas that are no longer used as covered markets. No, on the other hand – a document from the Interior Ministry has already specified it in the past – to parties or trade union organizations, places of worship, barracks, “for reasons of expediency”. Theoretically and practically, there is no shortage of places where voters can easily get in and out, provided the booths are suitably equipped and under police supervision.
However, it is unthinkable, even if one wishes, that in such a short time (we are voting in 59 days) the electoral offices of the Italian municipalities will redesign the entire seating plan, which should then also be displayed correctly in the ballot papers that are to be presented to the election officer. As always, it will be another time: The first “long weekend” of the school year is over.
Because the Democratic Party is risking a lot on September 25th