At 10.15am yesterday, Saturday 8 June, the Prefecture announced that the operations for setting up polling stations in the municipalities of the province had been duly completed. Polling stations open from 3pm to 11pm. The first day ended with a turnout of 15.01% in Venice, the city for the European elections (provincial average of 14.15% considering 776 out of 826 sections); slightly higher than the municipal ones, with 17.74%. It’s happening again today: polls open from 7am to 11pm. In 2019, 59.96% voted in the European elections.
The appointment with the European Championships involves 689,366 Venetians; in the capital 197,090 voters are called to vote.
On the other hand, there are 134,725 voters residing in 16 municipalities in the province who will also vote for the renewal of mayors and municipal councils. A thousand candidates running for 226 councilor seats and 39 mayoral candidates competing.
Yesterday afternoon many mayoral candidates of the major municipalities had already voted. In the early hours of yesterday afternoon in Spinea, the center-left candidate Franco Bevilacqua and the former mayor Martina Vesnaver accompanied by her eighteen-year-old son went to the polls for the first time. Among the first to vote in Noale were the mayoral candidates Alessandra Dini and Carlo Fascina, then Michele Celeghin; in Portogruaro Luigi Toffolo and Alida Manzato, in Cinto the only candidate for mayor, Gianluca Falcomer.
The mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, who is also metropolitan mayor and president of “Coraggio Italia”, also voted in Mogliano.
His was an invitation against abstentionism. “I voted, you can too”, was his invitation via social media.
In San Donà yesterday at 9.30pm a woman was hit in front of the Forte 48 school polling station in via Carrozzani by a Volkswagen Golf. The police forces on duty at the polls are on site. The woman suffered a broken arm and several blows, but it is not expected to be serious.
She was transported to San Donà hospital. In Terraglio, a district of Mestre, the electoral office had to hastily replace the polling station president yesterday morning, who was unable to show up because she had been injured in a road accident the day before.
Some presidents have also made appeals via social media to quickly find replacement scrutineers. It happened at the Pellico school in Altobello.
Controversy in Venice, due to the presence of at least 200 Actv employees among the scrutineers and list representatives with obvious repercussions on Venetian public transport. For the umpteenth time the wrath of the transport councilor was unleashed. Participation without crowds at the polls. With one exception.
Many young university students who were away from home already crowded the polling station of the Battisti school in via Dante, in Mestre, where this opportunity was experienced for the first time. More heated atmosphere in the Municipalities for the vote for the local elections (counting tomorrow from 2pm).
In Portogruaro some representatives of the Bertoncello civic list called the police because, according to them, representatives of the League were wandering around the sections, unable to do so. Some reports of list representatives too close to the sections also in Fossalta di Portogruaro. The most anticipated challenges are those of the major municipalities, Spinea and Portogruaro, which are leaving the commissionership. There is the possibility of going to the ballot also in Scorzé, Noale and Mogliano.
The largest municipality going to the vote in this round of administrative elections is Portogruaro while the smallest is Teglio Veneto. Here the only candidate for mayor is Oscar Cicuto, 39 years old, an agricultural employee who has been managing a cogeneration plant since 2017, before having been a technical employee at an artisan carpentry shop. Gianluca Falcomer, 40 years old, mayor of Cinto, also returns for an encore without competitors. Virtual election, for them, upon reaching a turnout of 40% of voters (saving half plus one of the valid votes counted).
