The electoral appeal with which, last July, the candidate for mayor (later defeated by Zofrea) Anna Maria Mungo, from the “Progetto Squillace” list, asked for verification of the legitimacy or otherwise of the operations to the election of the mayor and the renewal of the Squillace municipal council took place on 8 and 9 June 2024.
As is known, the local elections were won by the “Sono Squillace” list with a gap of only 10 votes on the list led by Mungo, and Enzo Zofrea was elected to the position of mayor.
The appellant, represented and defended by the lawyer Francesco Pullano, in the appeal had requested the annulment of the minutes of the meeting of the presidents of the electoral sections with which «Zofrea was illegitimately and erroneously proclaimed as mayor and the municipal councilors proclaimed; the minutes of the electoral operations relating to sections 1, 2 and 4; of electoral operations with consequent renewal of the same; and, gradually, of the result of the elections, with consequent renewal of the electoral operations, limited to sections 1, 2 and 4 for which the electoral result is illegitimate”.
The TAR instead accepted the arguments of the municipal administration, represented in court by the lawyer Oreste Morcavallo, and of the majority councillors, represented and defended by the lawyer Francesco Pitaro. In particular, the appellant, among other things, alleged the illegitimacy of the acts since the electoral consultations would have been characterized by very serious irregularities and illegitimacies, inherent to the counting of the ballots and the voting and counting operations, which would have determined an outcome altered through the so-called “wag card” system which deprives voters of the free expression of their vote and its secrecy. Mungo also claimed in his appeal that from an examination of the minutes of section no. 1, a series of incompleteness had emerged which would have affected the authenticity of the data and, with regard to the minutes of sections no. 2 and no. 4 revealed some alterations.