Italy's Chamber of Deputies rejected by a single vote, 188 to 187, an amendment backed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party to reintroduce preference votes into the coalition's electoral reform, with around 30 coalition lawmakers apparently voting against in a secret ballot requested by the opposition, Il Sole 24 Ore reported on July 14. The ruling parties vowed on July 15 to press ahead with the bill, a proportional system with a majority bonus, targeting Senate approval in September.

Italy's current system elects about a third of lawmakers in first-past-the-post constituencies and the rest proportionally from closed lists controlled by party leaderships, with preference voting absent for over 30 years. The proposed law would award 55%-57% of seats to any coalition that passes 42% of the vote and require that a candidate be named premier. Meloni, set in September to become postwar Italy's longest-serving premier, leads the most popular party, but polls show her center-right coalition in a virtual tie with the Democratic Party-led center-left alliance, with neither reaching the reform's 42% bonus threshold unless the center-right absorbs the newly formed far-right National Future, now polling above the co-ruling Lega party.