Overview
- The Partido Popular in Madrid has filed for a parliamentary commission to study the impact of the 'ley de nietos' on the electoral register and local PP branches have begun formal data requests to town halls.
- Party figures report roughly 132,771 new entries in the Censo Electoral de Residentes Ausentes (CERA) for the Community of Madrid since October 2022, which they say equals about a 40 percent increase in the region's external vote.
- National tallies cited in the coverage list about 1,225,188 nationality applications presented at consulates, 571,761 approvals and 333,696 CERA registrations overall, underscoring the administrative scale behind the surge.
- Municipal oddities have intensified scrutiny: Tres Cantos recorded an unexplained jump of around 200 external registrants and Madarcos shows nearly as many external voters as residents, prompting local audits and data demands.
- The dispute has a legal layer because the Supreme Court has required proof of exile for some nationality claims and has provisionally suspended the electoral effects of registrations tied to the contested 25 October 2022 instruction, while a planned commission would run from October 2026 to February 2027 ahead of the May 2027 vote.