The 2008 Italian general election was the second in which Italian and dual citizens living outside the country could vote by postal ballot in international electoral districts. Twelve members of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and six members of the Italian Senate were elected in this way. Italian and dual citizens in North America and Central America (including the Caribbean) elected one member of the Italian Senate. The winning candidate was Basilio Giordano from Silvio Berlusconi's party, known as the People of Freedom. The process All electors could vote for a political list and also cast a first preference vote for a specific candidate. The party with the highest number of list votes won the Senate seat, and the winning party's candidate with the highest number of first preference votes was declared elected. The parties Four electoral lists contested the North and Central American Senate division. The same lists also fielded candidates for the Chamber of Deputies and North and Central America. The governing centre-left Democratic Party ran a united slate, as did Berlusconi's right-wing opposition list. The moderately conservative Union of the Centre (UDC), formerly aligned with Berlusconi, ran a separate list, as did a small coalition of right-wing and far-right parties called The Right–Tricolour Flame. All of the party lists fielded two candidates. The candidates People of Freedom Basilio Giordano is a publisher and former municipal politician in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Augusto Sorriso is a former mayor of Licata, Sicily, who subsequently became an entrepreneur based in New Jersey. He had previously sought election to the Italian Senate in 2006. Democratic Party Renato Turano is an entrepreneur in Chicago. He served in the Italian Senate from 2006 to 2008. Marina Piazzi was born in Bologna on April 10, 1954, and moved to Mexico in 1976. She has taught Italian as a second language at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Mexico City and worked in the Italian department at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Piazzi has been active for many years with the General Council for Italians Abroad and other Italian community organizations. Union of the Centre Massimo Seracini (June 7, 1943 – January 16, 2009) was born in Florence and received an economics degree from the University of Florence in 1962. He moved to the United States of America in the 1960s and worked in real estate in California. After his marriage failed, he returned to