Spain is heading toward an electoral shift of historic magnitude. With 2.4 million citizenship applications submitted under the so-called grandchildren law, Pedro Sánchez's communist government has opened the door to an expansion of the electorate that could grow by 6% and deeply alter the outcome of the upcoming elections.
The figures, revealed by the media, show an unprecedented avalanche of applications, driven by a provision included in the Democratic Memory Law, one of the most ideological projects of the current administration. This law allows access to citizenship not only for descendants of Spaniards, but also for children and grandchildren of exiles or victims of reprisals during Francoism, a broad category that has triggered applications mainly in Latin America.
The government expected around one and a half million applications, but the final figure exceeded all estimates, multiplying by almost five the records of the closest precedent: the provision approved in 2007 under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's administration, which received just over half a million applications.
The most immediate political consequence will be seen in the Electoral Census of Absent Residents (CERA). In the 2024 European elections, there were 2,386,250 registered voters; if all current applications are approved, the figure would approach five million, a 100% increase that intensifies the weight of the overseas vote to unprecedented levels.
The participation of this electorate, historically marginal, would acquire relevance equivalent to that of entire autonomous communities. This is a sector whose mass inclusion could redefine political projections, altering the electoral balance in general, regional, and European elections.
The great unknown is how long the Ministry will take to process the millions of files. Nevertheless, even if approval is gradual, Spain is already moving toward a scenario where millions of new citizens with voting rights will reshape the political map.
Meanwhile, while the government defends the massive expansion of citizenship and avoids discussing its electoral effects, another even more alarming fact remains virtually absent from the official discourse: the growing weight of immigrants in the murders of women committed in Spain over the past decade.
