Referendum, with the polls closed, the first exit polls show that the "No" is between 49 and 53 percent. Record turnout at 58.42%, the counting begins.

Polling stations closed and from this moment the only wait is to know whether the referendum on judicial reform ("Regulations on the jurisdictional system and the establishment of the Disciplinary Court") has been won by the "Yes" or the "No". As of 3 PM today, March 23, 2026, the deadline for voting has expired and results are awaited. The very first exit polls  show the No in the lead between 49 and 53 percent. The Yes is estimated between 47 and 51 percent. The data was released by Opinio-Rai, covering a sample of 83 percent. 

The count will begin immediately, and by late afternoon today, more or less consolidated data should be available. It will all depend on the difference in votes between the two sides.

However, the first certain data to analyze is that of voter turnout: across Italy (61,533 polling stations), 58.42 percent of eligible voters participated; in Sicily, 46.94 percent (a still provisional figure), which places the Island at the bottom of the national ranking for percentage of people who voted. Nonetheless, this is a very high percentage for a referendum, which has thrown analysts and pollsters into chaos. The latest analyses that could be published indicated a more certain victory for the "No" in case of low turnout, and a more favorable result for the "Yes" if turnout had been higher. But such a high turnout was unexpected and may signal a remarkable mobilization of the electorate on both sides.

The latest referendums in Sicily

In the Island, the referendum on work and citizenship (voting on June 8 and 9, 2025) had a 23.10 percent turnout. The previous one, on June 12, 2022, which concerned the election of the judicial members of the Supreme Council of the Judiciary and the separation of functions between the prosecuting and judging magistracy, recorded a 23.3 percent turnout, referring to the Island. Neither of these two most recent cases reached the quorum.

To go back to the latest constitutional referendums, we must look at the consultation of September 20 and 21, 2020 regarding the reduction of the number of parliamentarians (the "Yes" won with 69.96 percent) and in Sicily the turnout was 35.39 percent (with 75.88 percent of voters in favor of the reduction). Four years earlier, the constitutional reform proposed by then Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was, instead, a resounding rejection of the framework proposed by the government: at the national level, on December 4, 2016, the "No" won with 59.12 percent of the votes. In Sicily, the voters were 56.65 percent of those entitled to vote, of which 71.60 percent voted "No".