Voting is one of the best "niches" where blockchain technology can be applied.
It's weird that Italy is the first country that has an idea to implement blockchain into voting.It isn't the most tech advanced country and it isn't the most crypto friendly(not that this idea has anything to do with crypto).
Yes, it would be weird if they were the first, but actually they are not pioneers in this regard.
For the first time blockchain-based voting was tried in Zug, Switzerland in June 2018. “The premiere was a success,” the officials said.
A month later, blockchain technology was successfully used for voting for midterm elections in some counties of West Virginia, USA.
Also, in 2017 Nasdaq successfully completed blockchain technology to run proxy voting in Estonia, although it was in the context of shareholder votes.