The Grand Council of the PNF, now an official state organ, was allowed to compose a single party list to be either approved or rejected by the voters.

[2] During 1930s Mussolini also led the armed local fascist militia, the MVSN or "Blackshirts", which terrorized incipient resistances in the cities and provinces and established the OVRA, an institutionalized secret police that carried official state support.

When the Austrian 'austro-fascist' Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss with dictatorial power was assassinated on 25 July 1934, by National-Socialist supporters, Mussolini even threatened Germany with war in the event of a German invasion of Austria.

Mussolini for a period of time continued strictly opposing any German attempt to obtain Anschluss and promoted the ephemeral Stresa Front against Germany in 1935.

The voter was provided with two equal-sized sheets, white outside, inside bearing the words "Do you approve the list of members appointed by the Grand National Council of Fascism?"