"Too often, Italy has been a distracted mother to those distant children, who are proud to be and feel Italian." Silvio Berlusconi's final message to our compatriots living abroad is dated August 2022, when, in the midst of the electoral campaign, the leader of Forza Italia, who died yesterday, addressed the "distant Italians," to whom he promised, once again, the establishment of a ministry for Italians around the world, foreseen only between 1991 and 1992 in the Andreotti VII government and then in the three Berlusconi governments, 1994-1995 and those 2001 to 2006: "A moral debt that our government will be able to honor", he said in an interview with the Voice of New York. The center-right then won the elections, and that promise has yet to be fulfilled, but what is certain is that Berlusconi was the first, as he frequently claimed, to provide parliamentary representation to Italians living abroad through a law governing their voting rights. The vote abroad was introduced, in fact, with the law n° 459 of 2001, known as the Tremaglia law, named after its supporter, Mirko Tremaglia (National Alliance), at the time minister for Italians abroad in Berlusconi's government. The law's passage allowed for the revision of articles 48 (Establishment of a Foreign Constituency), 56 and 57 of the Constitution (Election of Deputies and Senators), and established the right to vote for Italian citizens living outside the country. Following the passage of the Tremaglia law, a Foreign Constituency was established, with four divisions: "Europe", "South America", "North and Central America", "Africa, Asia, Oceania and Antarctica". Since then, Italians abroad who are registered with Aire have voted by mail, sending the ballot paper they receive from the competent Consulate. Each voter has the option of casting two preferential votes in the distribution of two or more deputies or senators, as well as one preferential vote in the others. The postal vote, above all, fuels the controversy at every electoral appointment: a mode of voting, it is claimed, that does not guarantee its secrecy. Criticisms that highlight the political significance of the vote of Italians abroad, which can represent the needle in the balance for the formation of a government majority, as happened in 2006, when four Union senators elected abroad allowed Prodi to take office in Palazzo Chigi. (sip)