If you are a journalist looking to write an article about the Italian parliamentary elections (which conclude today), a professor looking to talk to students about the election, or simply interested in Italian politics, I thought I would offer a quick recap of Monkey Cage related resources on the elections:
- A pre-election report on Italian electoral law, background on the major candidates and parties, and an overview of campaign developments
- Chris Hanretty’s poll aggregation-based prediction of the election’s result
- My discussion of the odd set of strategic voting incentives for a small portion of the Italian electorate
- Daily briefings (in English!) on the state of the campaign at the La Pietra Dialogues blog.
- A preliminary report on election related Twitter usage by Italians (from before the polling blackout period).
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UPDATE: Following the first day of voting, the two biggest stories so far appear to be a drop in turnout and the snowy weather – which of course may be related – and which some speculate may benefit the left. Recent Italian national elections have all been in the spring, so a winter election is a bit of a wild-card in terms of turnout expectations. The polls have now officially closed at 3:00 PM Central European Time (9:00 AM Eastern Standard Time) today, Monday, February 25th.
UPDATE2: Exit polls are coming in, and looking fairly similar to last round of actual polling before the blackout. Good English language source of information on exit polls and results is at the Guardian.
UPDATE3: As votes come in and news media updates projections, early release of exit polls look to be wrong. Now (2-3 hours after polls closed) we are seeing projections of Berlusconi coalition leading in Senate voting, and possibly even in House. The 5-Star party of comedian Grillo is doing much better than expected. There is a strong possibility that no party will have a majority in the Senate. Early elections within the next few months are a distinct possibility. But it is still early. Florida, anyone?
