Pity the Italians. Their election campaign appears to have lasted since the war ended, there are 48 parties from which to choose this time, and they have a mad system of proportional representation. As we report today, the result is a ballot paper that is the width of an open copy of The Times and almost the same height. The reading material, alas, may not be as interesting.

By British standards, this ballot paper is indeed a whopper. The record here involves 19 contenders in a parliamentary constituency. In a wider international context, however, the Italians have come off lightly. In the US, states such as California and Florida have so many contests and referendums that the ballot paper has to be turned into a small book to be manageable. The real monsters, nonetheless, are found in India. In one poll there, a ballot paper in excess of 10ft (3m) long was printed to cope with the more than 1,000 candidates who had been nominated.

The ballot paper has, clearly, come a long way since its introduction in the 1670s. In America, each party used to produce its own list of contenders and voters were invited to select between them. If they wanted to back different parties for different offices, they had to tear their papers carefully to suit before placing them into a ballot box — hence the phrase “split ticket”.

Italians might, though, be tempted to look to the ancients for inspiration. In 508BC, Cleisthenes pioneered a system in which citizens were invited to write, on ostraka or broken pots, the name of the politician whom they most wanted to send into exile for a decade. In an age when democracies want to increase electoral turnout, going back to basics may not be that bad an idea.