A few small last-minute problems were quickly resolved, then at 3pm the green light went off in all polling stations in the province with the opening of the polls for the European and administrative elections in the 17 municipalities of the province called to elect mayor and council (Arcola, Bolano, Bonassola, Calice al Cornoviglio, Carrodano, Castelnuovo Magra, Deiva, Follo, Framura, Monterosso, Pignone, Riccò del Golfo, Rocchetta, Sesta Godano, Varese Ligure, Vernazza and Vezzano). In the morning the Prefecture and the Municipalities had to take action to replace some scrutineers who had withdrawn at the last moment: a situation foreseen on the eve with the preparation of a ‘plan B’ and a list of reserve scrutineers to be called in case of emergency. As the defections of the ‘regular’ scrutineers gradually arrived, within mid-morning the absent ones were replaced with substitutes already put on pre-alert from the previous day, at 3pm all 258 sections in the provincial territory opened the polls regularly. To supervise the safety of the operations, a fixed surveillance service has been activated at the polling stations made up of around 70 state police agents throughout the province, around 80 carabinieri and 60 soldiers from the financial police, as well as some units of the provincial police and the penitentiary police. Around 40 local police officers are also on surveillance duty, in particular in the Spezia and Lerici stations. The task force also includes staff from the Police Headquarters and the police station as well as officers from the Carabinieri, the Financial Police, Digos and the traffic police.
The voting procedures which began at 3pm ended yesterday evening 11pm. We start again this morning with the polls opening at 7am and continue until 11pm. Then the counting of the European elections will begin immediately and will continue all night until Monday morning approximately around 5. Then the ‘break the lines’ for the polling president, secretary and scrutineers who, after a few hours of rest, will meet at 2 pm for the opening of the polls of the seventeen municipalities of the La Spezia province which will elect the new mayors and members of the municipal councils.
