1861_Italian_general_election
General elections were held in Italy on 27 January 1861, with a second round on 3 February.[1] The newly elected Parliament first convened in Turin on 4 March 1861, where, thirteen days later, it declared the unification of the country as the Kingdom of Italy.[2]
The elections were carried out according to the 1848 electoral law of the Kingdom of Sardinia, in which only literate men over the age of 25 and paying a certain level of taxation were allowed to vote.[1] Candidates were elected in single member constituencies, with a second round required in cases when no candidates received over 50% of the vote or the equivalent of one-third of the registered voters in the constituency.[3] The Pope demanded that Catholics did not take part in the elections.[3]