A little over a million Spaniards abroad from twelve communities will receive in May the documentation to vote in their regional elections automatically at home, which has not happened since 2007. After the repeal of “requested vote”, which from 2011 drastically reduced its participation, they are the ones who will be able to launch the new system, which means a return to the past, although with more facilities to send votes to Spain and the obligation to attach an identification document as an anti-fraud guarantee.
There are 1,051,434 expatriates with the right to vote in the autonomous communities of the twelve communities that will vote on May 28, according to the census closed on February 1. The final figure may vary only slightly. They make up 46% of the 2.3 million Spanish voters from abroad. And the fact is that among the five communities that do not vote are Galicia, with half a million voters, Catalonia and Andalusia, both with a little over a quarter of a million.
The unprecedented absence of Castilla y León and the reincorporation of Valencia, which in 2019 voted in April with the generals, make it difficult to estimate the volume of foreign ballots on 28-M. The last precedents prior to the requested vote they showed shares of more than 20%. Now it would be about 200,000 votes, more than three times as many as four years ago.
The census has doubled, which usually reduces participation, but it is also assumed that there is more desire to vote, and there are more facilities, because if the shipments of ballots from Spain are delayed, or even if they do not arrive, the voter can download them on the Internet or pick them up at the vote deposit centers, which will be substantially expanded. In any case, even with almost 15% participation, the volume of votes would more than double that of four years ago.
The impact on the results is even more unpredictable. Contrary to what you may believe, the weight of the foreign census in the total does not matter so much. It is mainly influenced by what will happen in the scrutiny within Spain, where 90 or more percent of the votes are cast. If the differences are great inside, the same will happen outside. If they are small, there may even be changes with a handful of ballots. In fact, the only case of a decided governability abroad, that of Asturias in 2012, was already with a requested vote.
A priori, external suffrage would be key in the Canary Islands, due to the attempt of the PP and Coalició Canària to dislodge the PSOE. There, La Gomera has 38% of voters outside, La Palma, 26%, and El Hierro, 22%. But even the diaspora may have some ability to influence Madrid in Díaz Ayuso’s assault on the absolute majority. Or for example in Valencia, with only 3.3% foreign census, if the result was very contested.
Before the requested vote, when sacks were traded, votes were sold by weight, dead people participated and foreign governments intervened, the results depended on which party was in power, which often swept. With the requested vote, on the other hand, the results differed less from those within Spain, although with their own dynamics, as when Podemos and its allies won. It was a very European stage, because from America the deadlines made it almost impossible to participate.
Now the vote of America is returning with renewed strength, since, due to the nationalizations of descendants of emigrants, it is where the census has grown the most in these sixteen years, which as a whole has risen from 1.1 million to 2.3 , and in the 28-M communities, from 460,521 to these 1,051,434 in 2023. These are very high figures, the result of the as forgotten as crucial reform of 1995, when Spain was one of the first countries in the world to implement registration officiating abroad. Thus, when the expatriate signs up at a consulate, he is included in the electoral roll, despite the fact that he usually had to apply for it, even with renewals.
The 28-M will be a rehearsal for the generals, to see how the expatriates react and the interest of the parties. And also to know if the fraud returns. With respect to 2007, there is the novelty of having to include a photocopy of the DNI or a similar document. It was only used before the requested vote in 2009 and 2010 in some autonomies and produced a decline in irregularities and participation. The risk will increase when there have already been several elections and there may be provision of documents.
The foreign vote returns, without asking for it, with a nuanced return model to the past, an enormous census and when only 3 out of 10 Spaniards abroad were born in Spain.
