Verdict on grandchild law: Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards lose the right to vote

They have Spanish citizenship, but they are not allowed to vote. This is currently happening to around 306,000 Spaniards. The Supreme Court has deprived them of their right to vote at the request of the right-wing extremist parties Vox and Iustitia Europa. These are the grandchildren of exiled democrats, leftists and trade unionists who once fled abroad to escape the fascist terror under dictator General Francisco Franco.

“Persons born outside Spain as children or grandchildren of people who originally had Spanish nationality and who lost or renounced it as a result of exile for political, philosophical or religious reasons or because of their sexual orientation or identity, can choose Spanish nationality,” says a 2022 law. This makes them entitled to the Spanish passport and all civil rights. It is automatically applied to all those who left the country between July 18, 1936 - the day of the fascist coup and the beginning of the civil war - and December 31, 1955.

Most of these families live in South America. The 306,000 people affected by the disenfranchisement have gone through the entire process, received their passports and registered on the voter lists at the consulates. Vox and Iustutia Europa, ideological successors of those who once violently seized power and put an end to the democratic republic, see the so-called “law of grandchildren” as an attempt to influence the electoral census in favor of the left.

They requested a temporary stop to the registration of “grandchildren” in the consulate voter lists. The Supreme Court has now upheld this. It sees “a well-founded, real and serious risk” that “the objectivity and transparency of the electoral process will be seriously compromised”. This would cause “irreversible damage to the integrity and regularity of the procedure” because it directly affects an element essential to the rule of law: the expression of the will of the people through the exercise of the right to vote.

The consulates are still allowed to accept applications for registration for the elections. But once completed, the application will be put on hold - according to the judge's order - until a final decision is made on the matter.

In proceedings, the Supreme Court wants to examine to what extent this measure will be upheld or not. Given the slow pace of the Spanish justice system, it is doubtful whether the final verdict will come before the upcoming elections. Most regional parliaments and all municipal councils will be elected in May and the parliament in early summer at the latest, and this will decide the future of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

The Spanish government sees the court decision as a “provocation”, as several ministers explain. It is worrying that tens of thousands of Spaniards are losing their right to vote even though they still have citizenship. According to the government, the top judges thereby adopted a right-wing theory. The conservative Partido Popular (PP) has now also joined the accusation of planned election manipulation by Sánchez. And this despite the fact that its chairman Alberto Nuñez Feijóo himself announced a law during a visit to Argentina to give his grandchildren passports and the right to vote if he came to power.

The voter turnout in previous elections shows that the vast majority of those who live in Latin America and have Spanish nationality do not go to the polls. This will probably not be much different with the new Spaniards who have now been recognized. In addition, votes from abroad almost never change the distribution of seats in parliament. This last happened in 2023 – back then in favor of the PP.