"Under Italy's new electoral system, the ballot winners are automatically granted 340 of the lower house's 630 seats no matter how small their margin of victory in the popular vote, with the runners-up getting 277 seats."
We ate in our (absolutley fabulous) local Italian place tonight (best antepasto EVER) and they have these rather educational place mats about Italy. Per the placemat Italy has 60 million people. The USA has 250 million. So WHY do they have so many congress critters over there? I mean, they have about 100 more than we do, with scores of millions fewer people. And their Senate is huge too.
PS - GO SILVIO!
It's called "Job Creation"...
Camera (lower house) goes to the L'Unione (Prodi) by 25k votes (but by system rules they get 340 seats to 277 for Berlusconi's CDL). The Senate hangs in the balance. Prodi declares victory, CDL says votes will be scrupulously recounted. "If there's a tie", says Berlusconi, "we will re-vote".