Chamber of Deputies
For the Chamber of Deputies, Italy is divided into 26 constituencies: Lombardy has three constituencies, Piedmont, Veneto, Lazio, Campania, and Sicily each have two, and all other regions have one. Additionally one is elected from the Aosta Valley and 12 are elected by a constituency consisting of Italians living abroad. These constituencies jointly elect 617 MPs.
Seats are allocated among the parties that pass thresholds of the total vote on a national basis:
- Minimum 10% for a coalition. If this requirement is not met, the 4% limit for single parties apply.
- Minimum 4% for any party not in a coalition.
- Minimum 2% for any party in a coalition, except that the first party below 2% in a coalition does receive seats.
Also, parties representing regional linguistic minorities obtain seats if they receive at least 20% of the ballots in their constituency.
In order to guarantee a working majority, a coalition or party which obtains a plurality of the vote, but less than 340 seats, is assigned additional seats to reach that number, corresponding roughly to a 54% majority.
Inside each coalition, seats are divided between parties with a D'Hondt method, and consequently assigned to each constituency to elect single candidates.
Read more about this topic: Italian Parliament, Electoral System
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