Elections on 20th and 21st september: how to vote safely
On Sunday 20th and Monday 21st September elections will be held in different Italian Regions and Municipalities and the Government has drawn up guidelines in order to vote safely.
In addition to the renewal of the Regional and Municipal Councils, there is a referendum to cut or not the number of Parliament members. But this round of voting will take place during a period that we will remember for a long time. Covid-19 has changed many aspects of our lives: and elections are no exception.
On 7th August (1), the Minister of the Interior, Mrs Lamorgese, and the Minister of Health, Mr Speranza, signed the health protocol to put in place in order to ensure that people can vote in total safety.
First of all (2) there is the preparation of the polling stations: dedicated and separate entrance and exit routes must be provided and identified with appropriate signs, in order to prevent the risk of interference between the flows of people in both directions. Once queued up in front of the section, people have to respect the social distancing.
The designated premises for the polling stations should be sufficiently large to allow a distance of one metre between the members of the section and between them and the voter. It is equally important to ensure a distance of two metres when the voter will be asked to temporarily remove the mask for the recognition. In addition, the premises must be equipped with windows to facilitate regular air exchange.
In addition, an in-depth cleaning of corridors, bathrooms, and any other rooms – that are planned to be used – must be ensured, following the guidelines of the Istituto Superiore Di Sanità (Italian National Institute of Health). These operations should be repeated at the end of each election day.
Secondly, to ensure the normal conduct of voting operations, it is mandatory to clean the premises and disinfect the contact surfaces such as tables and voting booths. It is also necessary to make sanitising products available in the common areas in the building and in each polling station to ensure frequent hand hygiene. In fact, the voter has to proceed with hand hygiene with the sanitizer provided not only when he or she will enter the polling station, but also after the approach to the components of the polling station for identification and before the delivery of the ballot paper and pencil. After the vote and the exit from the booth, further hand cleansing is recommended before leaving the polling station.
Finally, each citizen is asked to respect some basic rules of prevention, such as avoid leaving home and going to the polling station in case of respiratory distress or temperatures above 37.5°C. In addition, the voter must not be in quarantine or isolation at home and not have been in contact with Covid-19 positive people in the 14 days before the elections.
In order to access the polling stations, the use of the mask is compulsory for everyone, in compliance with the regulations in force which provide for its use in public places.
Therefore, in order to ensure that the elections are conducted as safely as possible, the most suitable instruments must be used.
SaniBact and SaniHands are the products that we have formulated to guarantee the accurate disinfection of surfaces and the deep cleaning of hands, as required by the WHO and Istituto Superiore Di Sanità guidelines. SaniBact is a concentrated disinfectant for surfaces with bactericide and virucidal efficacy, while SaniHands is the hand sanitizing gel with an alcohol content of over 70%.
Sources:
