The thin boundaries of the right to vote: mobile citizens and electoral constraints in Italy

The article explores the possibilities and limitations of voting rights for mobile Italian citizens, looking at how electoral laws and registration procedures have changed over time to cope with the increasing flow of people moving within and across national borders. Although the Italian State has long recognized its emigrants as part of the active electorate, until 2001 non-residents were required to return to their municipality of origin and had no alternative but to vote in person. This condition is still applied to internal migrants: registration on the electoral rolls is automatically linked to municipal population registers and, consequently, non-residents have to bear the administrative burden of transferring their residence after moving, or they have to travel back to their place of origin to vote. Our article describes the evolution of Italian electoral legislation and public awareness regarding the voting rights of mobile populations, including the recent experiment of remote vote for university students.