European elections, Gualtieri is still blocking the new EU Parliament. The sensational delay – Il Tempo

The capital remains in suspense. The official proclamation of those elected is in fact linked to the verification of the central electoral office at the Court where the magistrate in charge certifies the result of the polls. The 78 “incongruent” reports found at the central Capitoline polling station are under scrutiny. Let’s be clear, this is not a number that could influence the outcome of the preferences already certified but it certainly delays the official outcome of the vote. A delay after delay due to the IT “bug” that caused the data transmission system from the individual polling stations to the central system to go haywire. A sensational slip that brought the Italian capital to the international spotlight due to a count that took too long. And Mayor Roberto Gualtieri did not take it well, having already on Monday morning, despite being busy with Pope Francis’ visit to the Capitol, asked for an account of what was happening, announcing shortly after the start of an internal investigation. An investigation precisely to find out how it was possible that the “new digital platform”, contracted in 2018 by the former Raggi council, ended up being “tested” in the electoral system only a few weeks before the European elections last Saturday and Sunday . Not only that, it would seem that some flaws in this new platform had already been reported previously. It is not known, however, whether these reports were followed up or not.

The certainty, however, is that something like this has never happened before and someone, starting with the director of the Digital Transformation Department, Enrico Colaiacovo as well as the General Director of Roma Capitale, Paolo Aielli, will have to give answers. But what really happened? In essence, the “bug” became apparent at the time of data entry. In each polling station a “typer” has the task, via a tablet, of entering the result of the list votes provided by the president of each section. Once the polls closed at 11pm, the regular counting of ballots began in all 2,600 Capitoline sections. As soon as the counting is concluded, by completing the «form 121», the polling station president seals the package with the ballot papers and communicates the result to the «digitator» who transmits the data to the central system in real time. Shortly after the start of data transmission the system went haywire, opening reference screens of other sections.

In short, a big deal that forced the administrative machine to proceed on an emergency basis, bringing all the electoral packages to the Rome Fair where the list vote was added to the counting of preferences. This obviously slowed down the entire procedure and meant that the capital was in fact the last in Europe to have the definitive data. A significant lesson for Mayor Gualtieri who in a handful of months will have to manage much more complex situations, such as the major Jubilee events. In this case, however, we can at least count on Divine Providence. Moreover, if what is rumored in the Capitol is true, that the Director General was engaged in a pilgrimage on the Via Francigena, in the middle of one of the most important electoral rounds of recent years, the signal has perhaps already arrived.