General elections were held in Italy on 29 October 1882, with a second round of voting on 5 November.Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1047 The "ministerial" left-wing bloc emerged as the largest in Parliament, winning 289 of the 508 seats.Nohlen & Stöver, p1082
Electoral system Shortly before the elections the voting age was lowered from 25 to 21 and the tax requirement lowered from ₤40 to ₤19.80, whilst men with three years of primary education were exempted from it.Nohlen & Stöver, pp1029-1030 This resulted in the number of eligible voters increasing from 621,896 at the 1880 elections to 2,017,829.Nohlen & Stöver, p1049 The electoral system was changed from one based on single-member constituencies to one based on small multi-member constituencies with between two and five seats. Voters had as many votes as there were candidates, except in constituencies with five seats, in which they were limited to four votes.Nohlen & Stöver, p1039 To be elected in the first round a candidate needed an absolute majority of the votes cast and to receive a number of votes equivalent to at least one-eighth of the number registered voters. If a second round was required, the number of candidates going through was double the number of seats available.
Campaign The Historical Left was led by the Prime Minister of Italy, Agostino Depretis, a prominent member of the Italian politics for decades. The bloc of the Historical Right was led by Marco Minghetti, a conservative politician and former Prime Minister, from Bologna. A third large parliamentary group was the Historical Far-Left, a far-left organization led by Agostino Bertani, an Italian revolutionary.
Parties and leaders PartyIdeologyLeaderHistorical LeftLiberalismAgostino DepretisHistorical RightConservatismMarco MinghettiHistorical Far LeftRadicalismAgostino BertaniDissident LeftProgressivismGiuseppe Zanardelli
Results The "Ministerial" left-wing bloc emerged as the largest in Parliament, winning 289 of the 508 seats; the Right arrived second with 147 seats. Depretis was confirmed Prime Minister by king Umberto I.
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