Meloni ties her government's survival to an electoral law passed by confidence votes

Italy's lower house spent 6 and 7 October 2026 approving the first three articles of the government's electoral reform under confidence motions. Reuters reported that the second of Tuesday's two votes carried by 227 in favour, 149 against and three abstentions, and that the first passed by a comparable margin. The Chamber of Deputies' own communications office recorded the third confidence vote, on Article 3, at 228 votes to 144, after which Article 8 was approved and the sitting adjourned to Thursday 8 October at 10:30. The turn that makes this worth a piece is procedural rather than numerical. The articles passed on confidence, where a deputy's vote is recorded and a defection brings down the government. The bill as a whole goes to a secret ballot, where it does not.

What the bill does

The measure is A.C. 2822-B, "Disposizioni in materia di elezioni della Camera dei deputati e del Senato della Repubblica". The Chamber's bill record lists its first signatories as Galeazzo Bignami, Riccardo Molinari, Paolo Barelli and Maurizio Lupi, the floor leaders of the four governing groups, so this is coalition legislation introduced through parliament rather than a government bill. It was presented on 26 February 2026, approved by the Chamber on 16 July 2026, transmitted to the Senate on 17 July, and returned with amendments on 15 September 2026. The suffix B denotes that second passage; the Chamber is now voting on the Senate's text, and any further amendment would send the bill back across the corridor.

Reuters describes the substance as a fully proportional system with a seat bonus that guarantees a parliamentary majority to any alliance winning more than 42 per cent of the vote. The governing coalition calls it the Stabilicum; the opposition calls it the Melonellum. Euronews reported in March 2026, on an earlier draft, that the system to be replaced elects roughly a third of Italy's 600 parliamentarians in single-member constituencies and the remainder proportionally with a 3 per cent threshold, and that the Democratic Party's objection is that the rules of the game are being changed by the side that expects to benefit. Euronews also noted that the Constitutional Court has previously raised concerns about blocked party lists, in which the party and not the voter fixes the order of candidates.

Why the secret ballot is the real test

A question of confidence converts a vote on an article into a vote on the government's existence. It also forecloses amendment of that article and requires an open roll-call. Those two properties explain the stable margins of 226 to 228 across three successive votes: the coalition's deputies were not being asked whether they liked Article 3, but whether they wished to go to the country. The final vote on the bill, by contrast, is taken by secret ballot, which the Chamber's rules permit for electoral legislation. No deputy can be identified, and the disciplinary mechanism that produced the three confidence majorities does not operate.

That is the gap Giorgia Meloni has chosen to stand in. Reuters reported that she could resign if the bill is rejected on Thursday. The arithmetic leaves room for it: a margin of roughly 80 votes on confidence says nothing about how many of the same deputies would decline, unobserved, to endorse closed lists and a bonus that concentrates candidate selection in party headquarters. The reform's own beneficiaries are also its subjects, since every one of them will be ranked on a list by someone else.

The external timetable

The vote falls inside a crowded week for Rome. Palazzo Chigi's record shows Meloni receiving Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša on 5 October and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda on 6 October, both meetings framed around defence and energy, and co-hosting on 6 October the fourth video conference of the informal leaders' group on European competitiveness with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, ahead of the European Council of 15 and 16 October. On 7 October she attended the MED9 summit in Split.

The European agenda she is carrying into that Council depends on her being there to carry it. Euronews reported on 7 October that Italy and Czechia had written to the Commission seeking relief from EU climate instruments for industry, including extended free allocation of emissions allowances, a freeze on the phase-out of free allocation in sectors covered by the carbon border adjustment, and a possible temporary suspension of the Emissions Trading System; Euronews quoted Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto calling the ETS "unjust, absurd, unsustainable in international competition". A caretaker government in Rome through a spring election campaign would argue that case with far less weight, and a new electoral law enacted days before the Council would be the clearest signal yet that the coalition intends to be the government that negotiates the next ETS review.

Sources

• Reuters (via Internazionale) — Italy's electoral reform clears initial confidence vote hurdle
• Reuters (via Yahoo News) — Italy's electoral reform clears initial confidence vote hurdle
• Camera dei Deputati — Legge elettorale, votata la fiducia sull'articolo 3 e approvato l'articolo 8
• Camera dei Deputati — Archivio prima pagina
• Camera dei Deputati — Bill record, A.C. 2822-B, Disposizioni in materia di elezioni della Camera dei deputati e del Senato della Repubblica
• Camera dei Deputati — XIX Legislatura homepage
• Euronews — Italy's electoral law: is Giorgia Meloni reshaping the system to secure re-election?
• Euronews — Italians and Czechs push Brussels to ease green rules as energy crisis hits industry
• Governo Italiano — Latest from Palazzo Chigi