As Italians began trickling to the polls to vote in the general election on Sunday, some protested to show their disillusionment with politics.

Angry at plans to build a landfill site nearby, one group of young Neapolitans  gathered 600 election identification cards and sent them to the Italian president instead of using them to vote.

“I’m not going to vote because I don’t feel represented by the institutions and because there is no-one that worries about preserving our rights,” group member Sebastian Perrone told the Ansa news agency. 

Another angry Neapolitan took an even more novel approach: he ate his ballot form at the polling booth.

Finally, motorists on the A14 highway in Italy were greeted on Sunday morning by two large banners spray painted with the words : “Enough with politics, We want colonels!” They were quickly taken down by police.

A popular “anti-politics” movement led by figures like comedian Beppe Grillo has swept up about 6 to 8 percent of voters, estimates the pollster Luigi Crespi. He estimates the number of blank ballots will nearly triple to about 1 million during the April 13-14 election from about 400,000 in the last parliamentary election two years ago.

Italians can rarely be seen without their mobile phones, but the government has ruled they will not be allowed to take them into the polling stations on April 13-14.

The ruling is not to stop voters annoying their neighbours by shouting out: “I’m in the polling station!” but rather to prevent people selling their votes.

“We’ve made a law that plugs the one possible leak in the possibility of corrupt voting,” Interior Minister Giuliano Amato told a press conference.

“For years we’ve had the crime of paid-for votes. The most likely way is entering the booth with a phone or a camera, photographing your vote and using it as proof.”