I’ve often wondered: how much does a vote cost? Every time there is an election, in the hours preceding the announcement of the final results, we often wonder: Who won? Which regions were the determining factor? Sometimes we wonder how those votes were obtained, whether they were bought. But how much does a vote cost? It’s simple. During the period of the 2010 regional elections, the Naples District Anti-Mafia Directorate began an investigation into vote-buying. In Campania, prices were found to range from 20 to 50 euros, 25 up front and 25 on balance, that is, after the vote is cast. In some cases, votes are sold in batches of 1,000. The practice involves an organizer or vote mobilizer who promises the politician 1,000 votes in exchange for 20,000 or 50,000 euros. This individual then splits the money among the people who go and vote: retirees, unemployed young people. In Campania a regional seat can cost up to 60,000 euros. In Calabria you can get by with 15,000.

In general, with 1,000 euros a capo-palazzo in Campania can procure fifty votes. The capo-palazzo (neighbourhood organizer) is a non-criminal figure who manages to convince people who do not usually go to the polls to vote for such and such politician. As proof of his vote, the voter has to show a photo of the ballot, taken with his mobile phone.

In Puglia, a vote can be worth as much as 50 euros, just as it may be in Sicily. In Gela, on the southern coast of Sicily, however, there was a courageous mayor, Rosario Crocetta, who had long been committed to battling the Mafia; when he ran for the European Parliament in 2009, the clans offered him bundles of 500 votes for 400 euros. Imagine: 400 euros for 500 votes, 80 cents per vote! There is a wire-tapping report in the file of prosecutor Roberto Di Palma relative to a 2008 operation in the province of Reggio Calabria aimed at shedding light on the relationship between the Mafia and politics in Seminara, a village in Aspromonte in which the clans are able to control the votes one by one. In the intercepted conversation, the bosses say that the slate they’re supporting in the municipal elections will get 1,050 votes. At the final tally the judges counted exactly 1,056 votes.