Financiarul

The 55 polling stations organized on Italian territory have opened at 7.00 a.m. local time (8.00 a.m. Romania’s time), a number of 167,000 Romanians being expected to cast their vote, according to the number of ballot papers sent by Bucharest authorities to the Peninsula.

Even though the number of Romanians in Italy is approximately 800,000, according to the official statistics and more than 1.1 million, according to some other estimations, their presence to the ballot box was very reduced at the latest polls, with just a few thousands of electors casting their vote. The 55 polling stations organized in Italy cover in general the map of Romanians’ presence in Italy, with at least a polling station in 17 of the 20 regions of the country.

The highest number of polling stations can be found in the regions with large Romanian communities: Lazio (13), Lombardia (8), Piemonte (6), Veneto (5), Toscana (4), Friuli Venezia Giulia and Emilia Romagna (3 each), Umbria, Calabria and Marche (2 each) and a polling station each in the regions of Abruzzo, Sardinia, Campania, Puglia, Sicilia, Liguria and Trentino-Alto Adige.

Only 2,070 Romanian citizens have voted in the 16 Romanian polling stations opened in Italy for the Euro-parliamentary elections on June 7, this year. A number of 3,809 electors cast their vote in the legislative elections of Nov. 30 2008 and 2,150 Romanian citizens in the Peninsula cast their vote in the Euro-parliamentary elections in the autumn of 2007.