Monday was a normal day in Pontelandolfo. The school lobby was open so we could vote in the Regional Election. With “what party” and “who” I was to vote for jotted on a note in my pocket, I raced around the rain drops. It was teeming and in 15 minutes the polls would close.
(For those of you who wondered why I had the “what” and “who” jotted on a note, there were six candidates representing six parties. All wanted to be Regional President. I can barely remember my own long Italian name. You had to know the name of the candidate so you could print it nicely on the paper ballot.)
Cursing the rain and hobbling up slick steps without a guardrail leading into the school, I looked up and raised a fist at my dad.
JFG started us getting out the vote before we could drive.
He had ingrained in me the absolute need to vote in any and all elections. Deluge be dammed. I stopped in the foyer, shook the water out of my hat and opened my tessera votare to see where I had to go. District 3.
District 3. How is it possible that the district I lived in so many years ago. The district filled with ardent supporters that made sure my dad would be successful in Flagtown, Hillsborough and the County was the same district I’d vote in here?
Ciao Midgeee! Salve Midgeee! And as it had happened years ago in a different District 3, the home town chattering began.
I voted and dashed out.
Barely making it to the car, I was convulsing with sobs. Tears ran down my face. Jack, who didn’t go inside to vote kept touching me and asking what was wrong.
Angie Dorsa. Mc Cray, Mc Hugh, Doyle, Johnny G – my dad. My bigger than life dad who was an iconic election figure. That’s what was wrong. After hearing the first poll worker bellow “Midgeee,” all those old Democrats came to life for me. I could see them, feel them, hear them in the District 3 of yore.
Click and feel the moment. Midge “raw”coming to you from her Fiat.
I’ll tell you what I observed from my table in the piazza.
Sipping caffè one day and attempting to read Il Sannio, the local newspaper, I nearly choked on a headline. Gli sconti per chi vuole spostarsi in treno in auto o in aereo(discounts for those who want to travel by train by car or by plane). For folks to get back to their home towns to vote there are heavy discounts on travel! There was a 60% discount on regional trains, 70% on national trains, 60% for travel by sea and the one that really kicked me in the ass – a 40 euro reimbursement for air travel. Now my ticket on May first was a hell of a lot more than 40 euros but my niece in London could have flown over for the weekend for practically nothing. Maybe they don’t do absentee ballots or they just like to have folks come home once a year. This is definitely a good thing!
Another good thing is the short campaign season. I can’t find any on line resources to validate what folks have told me but it seems that candidates and parties can only campaign for one month. Yeah! No political BS for years in advance of an election. Here, it is simply signs on the approved village sign boards and visiting folks in their homes.
This is the actor/comic Beppe Grillo’s party. He lost but had cute signs.
My landlord did get mail from parties but only one from each – not a thousand from each and no robo calls! How civilized.
Notice the palm card – well 4 palm cards – with the X through the icon – in case you forget how.
What’s bad? A hefty percentage of the people I surveyed in Pontelandolfo were not going to bother to vote. “Why – what does the EU do for me?” “Politics – it doesn’t matter they are all the same.” It was interesting for me to hear this laconic attitude. Last year when the election was totally local it seemed like everyone in the commune came out to vote – and they practically did. When I went to the polls this year I was the only one in my district’s room. Good news is I didn’t have to wait. According to AGI.it – there was a nationwide drop in voters for this particular election:
(AGI) Rome, May 26 – Turnout in Italy for the European election on Sunday fell to 57.22 of percent of eligible voters from 65.87 percent in 2009, when polls also remained open on Monday morning.
Here is some of the ugly. One afternoon, I thought I was in Hudson County, NJ. Men at the next table were listening to a recording on a cell phone and getting angrier and angrier. They played it a couple of times – it was hard to eavesdrop with all that cursing but… In a local race at a village whose name I didn’t catch, a candidate was calling people and literally threatening their jobs. Being a middle aged white woman and obviously harmless, I asked what the men were upset about and they told me. Some creep was calling older voters and telling them he would insure they lost their government jobs and never get another job unless they voted for his party. My question was how the hell would anyone know who you voted for? Paper ballots – you hand write a person’s name on paper ballots. The villages are so small and there are so few folks that vote in a district that you can figure out who voted for you especially if they use the mark. The mark? You are told how to write the person’s name – I’m not kidding here this is what they told me. Like, I’ll steal your cow unless you write me in as MiDge. They tell the next old dude to write it midGe. Since challengers get to review all ballots too…… This is pretty ugly. Uglier than anything I’ve heard of in NJ which can get pretty ugly. How is that bridgegate scandal doing?
Yes, I voted. My dad ingrained that in my brain. In Pontelandolfo we were only voting for the party who would send representatives to the EU. We vote in the provincial high school – it is a specialty school for jewelry design. Talk about good artsy vibes on election day.
This picture was from last year’s election. Yesterday there wasn’t a line nor a policeman.
I went into district two, showed them my voting card, carta identita and like last year started to give them my passport when the election worker said “we know you.” H’mm is that good or bad? They handed me a pencil and a piece of paper. Horrifying the pool workers, I started to put my mark right there and stuff the box. I mean all you have to do is put an X across the icon of the party. They pointed me to my secure screened space, I made my X and then stuffed the paper ballot in the box. There are no hanging chads you literally make an X over an icon. I am a good cittadini. I vote early and often. Look – I had my voter ID card stamped to prove it!
Carmela generously invited us for pranzo yet again! We don’t complain she is one of the best cooks I have ever encountered. We were all eating and laughing – well they were laughing at my Italian – when the door burst open and Carmela’s youngest daughter, Giusy raced in screaming. She was ranting so rapidly that I couldn’t figure out if the dog had died, her car was in an accident or – what? The what was something I never would have imagined. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t believe it, she is running for “consigliere” which is like being on the city council. Now in my New Jersey family, politics were a part of life. My dad started running for office before my sister and I could even run. We grew up licking stamps, banging on doors, smiling at creepy people and getting out the vote. I’ve run for and sat on a school board. Ran and lost a whopper of a city council race in Asbury Park and worked on numerous campaigns over the years.
What a kick in the bloodline connection to hear this beautiful 25 year old woman go on and on about shady campaigning. It seems that the last mayor (Sindaco) had been re-elected for a second five year term when the council (consiglieri) decided they couldn’t work with him. So they all up and resigned! Just like that a change of government! That meant another election had to be called – an out of cycle election. Before I go on let me try to explain the basics of the system. I sat down with Rossella ( our family avvocato) to get a quick lesson.
There are four levels of government – Federal (Governo Stato with two houses – Camera dei Deputati and Senato), Regional (President & Consiglio Regionale), Provincial ( President & Consiglio Provinciale) and local (Communale – Sindaco and Consiglieri). The number of local council members (Consiglieri) depends on the size of the Comune. I’m only going to talk about this local election – we have a cousin running and that makes this election important.
Village Crest
The Sindaco (mayor) and her/his Six Consiglieri are elected every five years – man does that sound just like my old home town Asbury Park, NJ. Originally the entire country had the local elections on the same two days (how civilized – two days – one of which is a Sunday). But as governments caved in and special elections had to be called the country suddenly found itself with elections happening all the time. Back to Pontelandolfo – the last six consiglieri walked and the Ministero dell’ Interno picked the date for the new election. The village activists only had a scant few weeks to get tickets together. The ticket formation is key.
The way local elections work in Italian towns is “all or nothing”. The various political parties ( organizations) put someone up for Sindaco. On the ballot you must vote for the party of the Sindaco and then write in just one name from the list of names below his/hers. That list is called “la lista” and the people on the list are the people the newly elected Sindaco will choose from for his consiglieri. You write the name of the one person you want to be consigliere after you vote for the party/sindaco. Who knew that “bullet voting” was a common sport in Italian politics! If the Sindaco whose list a person is on wins and that person – hopefully my cousin Giusy – was the top vote getter on the list than the Sindaco has to name her a member of the consigliere. The sindaco gets to pick four from his ticket. This is the majority (maggiore) and then the Sindaco must pick the Sindaco candidate of top two vote garnering other lists. These two become the consiglieri di minoranza. This all means the top vote getters are set for five years – unless the consigliere decide the Sindaco is too stupid to live and they all resign. Whew – it really is winning party take all.
The dilemma this particular Saturday was a typical scurrilous whisper whisper campaign tactic. Folks are spreading the rumor that the old ousted mayor supports the ticket that Giusy is on. Since he was ousted, that doesn’t bode well for her group. As Giusy went door to door asking for a vote for her group in general and herself in particular, she discovered this unwanted endorsement – not at one house but at many!
My immediate New Jersey political maven thought was – which one of the other groups started the rumor? When I ran for city council in Asbury Park this pazzo woman ran around telling people that my sons and I were slum lords in Bradley Beach. Strange rumor since A – I don’t have any kids and B – I only owned one house ever! People just like to rattle the gossip chain. The conversation around the table was heated. The advice ranged from “let it go – who will believe him” to “confront him and tell him to stop”. I was thinking more along the lines of sending out a flier that has the former Sindaco endorsing another group and really confusing everyone. During the angst, I discovered that Rossella’s husband Pasquale is a consigliere of a neighboring town. She married into another family with a history of political activity. When I heard that I stuffed another vote into the ballot box for blood defining who we are.
This is the Municipal Building.
The first year I had my Italian citizen ship, we happened to be in Pontelandolfo during a municipal election. I actually gotten a post card alerting me to the election before we left Asbury Park. When Jack and I visited Carmela and Mario I asked about the upcoming election and if I could vote. They didn’t think I could but were supporting a “sindaco” – I had no idea what that meant, but of course I would vote for whoever they told me to vote for – I mean I did grow up in a political family and knew the drill. They made a call and suddenly this man raced in, grabbed me, my Italian passport and dragged me to the municipal building. I had no idea why. At that time I spoke barely any Italian and just signed where he pointed. The next thing I knew I had a document that allowed me to vote in my first Italian election. The elections are very civilized – they are over two days – one of which is Sunday. You have no excuse not to get to the polls. Besides with half of the town standing in front of the polling place going to vote is a social event. I went in to the poll, handed in my certificate and was handed a paper ballot. Now what? I couldn’t read a thing, couldn’t ask a question and stood staring at the little cardboard dividers set up on tables. Luckily, things are pretty relaxed and Annarita not only photographed my first vote but went to my “booth” with me. All I had to do was put an X in the circle with the sindaco’s name and write my choice for consigliere (I had it written on my palm) on the line below; then fold it and yes – stuff it in the ballot box! Since then, I have voted in a number of federal elections – absentee of course.
Tessera Elettorale – Voting Card/Record
This year, knowing that I absolutely had to vote for Giusy, I went to the municipo with Rossella and asked the clerk myself for the necessary document to vote. The election is May 26 & 27 . Stayed tuned for more election updates as nefarious plots and electioneering continue!
Nonna's Mulberry Tree 