Because nobody can take it seriously, even with trying real hard. It's an online vote. Sort of a glorified internet petition with no legal bindings.

Hey, we take it quite seriously, almost as Catalonia and Scotland referendums, and reporting about it with deep and fair sympathy, and we're pretty much continental and european too!

We'll take ya. Makes the most sense anyway, since it means the US flag wouldn't need a redesign.

A short update on the referendum in Venice. There were two million people voting on the referendum and the results are: 89% of people for the secession from Italy and 11% not. It seems there is more to this then anybody thought. A big number of people voting. The organizators now founded an official Independence movement and will demand a legal referendum by the Italian state.

Yeah but truth is that even the voting for parliament is now slowly going to move to online only without any voting papers. At least this what they are going to do here in Slovenia - at least they are planing it. One of the countries doing this already is one of the baltic countries - not sure which one at the moment.

Sure. But it's a huge difference if there's an official voting with checks who can or already has voted or a simple online vote, like a newspaper asking for their readers yes/no opinion. And afaik, this was more like the second one.

Part of it likely stems from the days of the citystates, yes, since Italy as a country is younger than even the US. The citystates, especially Venice, are culturally distinct from other/southern parts of Italy, though they share some traits. About as much as Germany does with its Germanic neighbours, culturally.

And while Venice was weak militarily on land, they were very strong at sea. Not as much as the Dutch, British or Spanish, but they definitely beat all the others in the Mediterranean, which is all that mattered to them.

So tiny and ambiguous a phrase makes secession impossible? So the Italian Constitution basically says people aren't allowed to rule themselves through any entity other than the central Italian government? I knew that Italian prime ministers could come across as dictatorial, but I didn't think it would even be in the constitution. I wonder if the other five founding EU member states ever took that into account when they made democracy one of the requirements for EU membership.

Though that tiny phrase makes indeed secession impossible, it does not mean autonomies are suppressed: the article 117 clearly states the matters of exclusive central authority, and they are basically the same as every federal state, like money-making and army management. You should anyway consider the fact that the Constitution was written right after the end of WWII, so the risk of dismemberment was high. Moreover, Italy had the strongest communist party outside the Soviet Union, is an important strategic point in the Mediterranean sea and was under occupation of the Americans, so... draw your conclusions from that.

Man, it was an unofficial online survey WITHOUT any kind of identity check system! I wonder how many people actually voted, and how many votes came from false IDs.

No. Definitely not. Not in Italy, anyway: many parts of the country still aren't covered by a stable internet connection, and based on how thing are going, a lot of time will pass before it becomes a viable solution!

That's sad, being that Venus was supposed to be loaded with hot women.

And yes it was an unofficial survey but if over 2 million people took part of it that show that there something seriously wrong with the system if they show the desire to sucede.

Ok, did not know about the bad internet connections in Italy. Here most of the cities now have optical connections only and the optical network is now being expanded to the countryside also so that is not an issue here at least.