On June 8 and 9, Italians will be called to vote on five abrogative referendums. Since these are political matters, we won’t delve into the specific topics, except to say they concern certain labor laws and one issue related to foreign immigration in Italy. Instead, we’d like to briefly summarize the referendum system in Italy.

Since 1946, Italy has held 78 national referendums. Modern-day Italy was born out of a referendum. On June 2, 1946 (which is now celebrated as Republic Day), citizens chose a republican form of government over a monarchy in the institutional referendum. On the same day, the Constituent Assembly was also elected.