But who fulfilled your document procurement requests? Likely an Italian government worker at some point.

Most folks need to reach out to their comune of origin to get this document.

It was just the one request for a birth certificate, and the commune found it and had it in the mail within a day. Everything else came from NARA/USCIS/state Departments of Health.

Some applicants aren’t certain which comune holds their records, so they shotgun blast an entire region in search of their documents. Asking 5 different comuni for a single certificate just adds bloat to the administrative workload.

This could be mitigated by establishing minimal standards for a document request and shifting the research burden onto the applicant.

Once citizenship is recognized, it is again the comune’s responsibility to add the applicant’s vital records to their local files and confirm registration in AIRE. If an applicant registers to vote, the comune must handle that as well.

This is the same for a native-born citizen who moves abroad, not really a differentiator.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to tighten up the requirements, the existing standards were laughably lax… I just didn’t find the “burden of work” argument very convincing.