The Government confronts the far-right Vox over the CERA vote: denies lack of control and rejects an "artificial alteration" of the census

The Government has rejected that there has been a lack of control over the Electoral Census of Absent Residents (CERA) and has reproached the far-right Vox for casting suspicions of an alleged “artificial alteration” without identifying, in its opinion, concrete irregularities.

This is how the State Legal Service, representing the Ministry of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes, has responded to a lawsuit filed by the party led by Santiago Abascal before the Supreme Court against a decision by the Central Electoral Board (JEC) regarding the so-called ‘grandchildren’s law’.

The controversy revolves around the Electoral Census of Absent Residents (CERA), where Spaniards living outside Spain are registered and can vote in elections. The number of registered people has increased in recent years, especially after the so-called ‘grandchildren’s law’, which allowed certain descendants of Spaniards to obtain Spanish nationality.

The Executive's defense before the Supreme Court

The Executive asks the Contentious-Administrative Chamber to declare the full conformity with the law of the action challenged by Vox, in which the JEC stated that it had no competence to act on the naturalizations of descendants of Spaniards derived from the ‘grandchildren’s law’, despite the fact that part of the body noted an “irregular increase” in the electoral census.

For the Government, “the quantitative magnitude of the increase does not constitute 'per se' an indication, much less proof of irregularity”, because “an increase can be statistically relevant and, at the same time, legally justified”.

In its brief, the State Legal Service adds that “the lawsuit derives from the total figure a suspicion of ‘artificial alteration’ of the census, but does not identify duplicate registrations, people who do not formally hold Spanish nationality, or registrations made without the corresponding registry communication.” It argues that “its objection is not directed at the technical accuracy of the census, but at the legality of the prior acquisition of nationality.”

Control of the CERA and the actions of the Electoral Census Office

It adds that “nor has there been a lack of control of the CERA in this case” by the Electoral Census Office (OCE), since “the movements communicated by the consulates are subjected to a technical format validation and a census consistency validation by comparing them with the national database, in order to verify the existence of voters, avoid duplicities and ensure their correct geographical assignment.”

The system also maintains “the traceability of movements and exchanges through a historical archive”, and the OCE carries out continuous purges of the CERA and the CER in collaboration with city councils and consulates, as highlighted in the brief from the State legal services.

For the Government, “it cannot be understood that there has been a dereliction of its control functions by the OCE”, because the increase in the census “is not an increase ‘lacking justification’, but is a consequence of the application of the different legal norms through which the possibility of opting for Spanish nationality has been recognized for various groups of people.”

The right to vote and the Supreme Court's precautionary decision

The State legal services also maintain that the right to vote is an “inherent consequence” of being a Spanish citizen and that “there is no legal basis to deprive” those who have acquired that status through a definitive and firm administrative act.

At the beginning of September, the Supreme Court provisionally suspended the vote for people registered in the CERA who obtained nationality through the ‘grandchildren’s law’, a provision of the Democratic Memory Law and new registrations, except for accredited exile of descendants.