The mask remains "strongly recommended" to access the polling stations and vote next Sunday, when five referendums and the first round of the municipal ones are scheduled, but it will not be compulsory, and therefore even those without it will be admitted to the vote.
The announcement of the
Interior Ministry comes on the day in which, however, the obligation for the eighth grade and high school exams was confirmed by the Lazio TAR
, the only areas in which the most restrictive measure remains in force.
The decision comes a few days after the vote and after a series of controversies that concerned, in particular, the possibility that the obligation of the mask could hinder the achievement of the quorum of 50% of voters for the five referendums on justice, as he stated the Northern League player
Roberto Calderoli
, on hunger strike together with the radicals to ask for more attention to the referendum vote, or even a way to pilot the outcome of the consultation, as claimed by the Italexit movement for which the obligation to wear a mask would have shown "the will to vote on Sunday June 12, only the elite, who support the management of this government ".
In the evening, a circular was issued by the Ministry of the Interior to all prefects after the signing by the Ministers of Health, Roberto Speranza, and of the Interior, Luciana Lamorgese, "of the addendum to the health and safety protocol of 11 May 2022 for the conduct of electoral and referendum consultations for the year 2022 ".
The new measures, "in consideration of the changed epidemiological framework", announced the Interior Ministry, provide for "the strongly recommended use of the surgical mask for the access of voters to the polling stations, for the sole exercise of the right to vote".
Obligation is therefore implicitly but clearly excluded.
The only circumstance in which the mask remains, for the moment,
compulsory remains that of school exams at the end of the year, after the TAR of Lazio today declared legitimate the ordinance with which the Ministry of Health, ordered the obligation for students to wear the Ffp2 in school environments.
Even if it is not excluded that the Viminale circular dedicated to voting operations could act as a forerunner for any revisions of the procedures also in schools.
