Efficiency in Italian regions - measured by speed in counting votes

(post inspired by the great works at StrangeMaps)

On Sunday and monday, the 28th and 29th of March, 2010, elections for Regional Governor have been held in 13 (out of 20) Italian regions.

Counting votes started as soon as the ballots were closed, at 15.00 on monday. Displayed here is a map that shows how fast the votes have been counted in each of these regions. It's a snapshot taken in the moment when the fastest region (Liguria - capital: Genoa) completed its counting operations.

Colours in the map represent the winning political coalition: blue is "centro-destra" (centre-right) and red is "centro-sinistra" (centre-left). Black shows the approximate percentage of votes that were still to be counted when Liguria completed its operations.

The map lends itself to several interpretations:

• Centre-left voters, disappointed by the elections' outcome, may rejoice a little in seeing that the 5 most efficient (by this standard) regions are all ruled by the centre-left coalition.
• To be fair, some of the less efficient regions are also ruled by centre-left coalition. Also, efficiency should be placed on incumbent governors' shoulders, not today's winners. And Piemonte, Lazio and Campania were all ruled by the centre-left coalition.
• Geographic analysis seems to lead to more coherent conclusions. The 5 fast regions are all in the "northern-central" part of Italy. The extreme north, usually perceived as the country's most efficient region, lags clearly behind. And the more you go to the south, the slower the results (Puglia's and Calabria's vote counting ended only the morning after).

Finally, it's worth mentioning that this is simply a way for toying with the results, and it's certainly not the author's intention to infer any real conclusion about regional efficiency from speed in vote counting (one may even call it "pointless efficiency", as it gives no practical advantages whatsoever, since even in the "slow" regions the outcome of the vote was clear enough on monday's afeternoon)