I diversi bilanciamenti tra principio democratico, libertà di voto e diritto alla salute nei rinvii delle scadenze elettorali a causa della situazione pandemica

The paper faces the postponement of elections during pandemics in Italy. It assesses the necessity of a constitutional balancing among the democratic principle, in one hand, and the freedom of vote and the right to health, in the other. The former would require not to postpone the elections, the latter the opposite. The paper distinguishes the space of this balancing according to the different legal force of the sources of law, which regulate every specific election. It concludes that the postponement of elections in Italy during pandemics shows lights and shadows. In fact, the postponement of the constitutional referendum and other elections during the first phase of pandemics seems to comply with a reasonable balancing of the constitutional values at stake, while the postponements in the second phase of pandemics seem to sacrifice excessively the democratic principle.