In the middle of the application period for postal voting on 29 November 2026 have Isabel Díaz Ayuso, President of the Comunidad de Madrid, and Vox leader Santiago Abascal have publicly advised against voting by post. Their comments echo recurring claims of supposed electoral fraud. However, there was pushback from the leadership of Partido Popular : spokesperson Borja Sémper said the system was robust and subject to oversight by the Junta Electoral Central.
The current legal framework has also been altered by a ruling of the Tribunal Supremo . On 10 September 2026, its Administrative Chamber provisionally suspended the application of the so-called Ley de Nietos to the overseas electoral register (CERA). According to the judges’ reasoning, the measure concerns only new registrations in the CERA, not how postal voting works. The background is a sharp rise in the number of registered overseas voters following naturalisations under the Ley de Nietos.
Correos, which is responsible for administering postal voting, explained the process on 6 October 2026: eligible voters receive their ballot papers by post, return their vote by the deadline with proof of identity, and the Oficina del Censo Electoral organises its allocation to polling stations. The company says delivery, identity checks, deadline monitoring and transfer to the electoral authorities are documented in several stages. Oversight rests with the Junta Electoral Central.
There is currently no evidence of systematic fraud involving postal voting. Public-service media such as RTVE and fact-checkers such as Maldita.es point out that claims circulated so far about an alleged imminent “Pucherazo” are unfounded. The legal dispute over the CERA following the Ley de Nietos is a separate matter: it concerns whether and how newly naturalised citizens abroad should be entered on the register, but does not affect the rules for casting a vote.
Politically, public warnings about postal voting fuel distrust of a legally regulated process. At the same time, the consequences of the Tribunal Supremo’s ruling for the count of voters registered abroad remain unclear for now. Further decisions are possible. As things stand, postal voting can be requested and used; it is overseen by the Junta Electoral Central and the Oficina del Censo Electoral, and administered by Correos. Whether the debate affects turnout on 29 November 2026 remains an open question, not an established fact.
Editor: Phillipe Schmidt-Araguin (Article created with AI assistance).