Last April, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, revealed that 2.45 million descendants of Spaniards had applied for nationality under the Democratic Memory Law. According to Albares, by March of this year more than 1.2 million files had been initiated, of which 545,000 had already been approved and 306,500 registrations completed in the consular register, a prior and definitive step for enrollment in the electoral census. Had it not been for the recent intervention of the Justice system, the projections derived from these figures would have led to a controversial scenario in future general elections: up to 12 out of every 100 people registered in the census would have exercised their right to vote from abroad by the end of the process.
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The census data reflects the turning point that the entry into force of the regulation represented. While in the entire year 2021 the census of Spaniards abroad increased by 57,667 people, since the application of the grandchildren law, in October 2022, the number of new registrants has skyrocketed by 461,858 voters. If the period since the last general elections (July 23, 2023) is taken as a reference, the increase in those registered from abroad is 403,473.
The acceleration is evident in that only between January and August 2026, 82,790 new registrations were recorded, surpassing in eight months the growth of a whole year before the regulation came into force. The momentum did not stop even in summer: between June and August, the Electoral Census of Spaniards residing abroad (CERA) added 31,702 voters. With these figures, those registered from abroad have gone from representing 6.14% of the total census in October 2022 to 7.13% as of August 1, 2026. That is, 7 out of every 100 Spanish voters would now exercise their right to vote from abroad.
The impact on the provinces
This general increase of 20% nationwide has been distributed unevenly across the Spanish geography. The Community of Madrid leads the increases throughout Spain with a rise of 36.67% in votes from abroad, so 9 out of every 100 voters in the region are now registered outside Spain. It is followed by territories such as Balearic Islands (30.21%), Álava (29.12%) and Girona (28.22%). Above the national average were also 15 other provinces, and the lowest figures correspond to Lugo, Pontevedra, Córdoba, A Coruña, Badajoz and Ourense, which closed the list with the smallest increase in voters from abroad in the whole country, 7.79%.
However, the data points to the lack of a real connection in most of these Madrid registrations. According to current regulations, those who have never lived in Spain must indicate “the municipality of greatest personal or ancestral attachment.” Unlike regions such as Galicia or Asturias, where there is a direct historical and family link with migratory flows, in the case of Madrid the high volume corresponds to a fictitious or convenience attachment: it is the capital.
The political impact of this mass of voters is notable. After the 2023 elections, the Ministry of Inclusion and Migrations itself acknowledged on its website that the external vote had the capacity to “alter the last seat in up to nine provinces with differences of less than 2,000 votes“, a circumstance that allowed the PP to take a deputy from the PSOE in Madrid after the CERA recount. Faced with doubts due to regulatory ambiguity, the Supreme Court has requested a report from the Electoral Census Office to determine how many registrations have been made under the grandchildren law.
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