The lawyer Julio Pellitero, from the Gowper team, with offices in Spain and the United States, warns that Spanish politicians are deliberately conflating two distinct issues: the rights acquired by new Spanish citizens under the Law of Grandchildren and the suspicion of electoral fraud concerning overseas voting, a controversy that could unjustly harm Cubans of Spanish descent.
In an interview with Tania Costa, in CiberCuba, Pellitero was categorical: "There are two fundamental issues that politicians are obviously trying to mix." The first is that the rights of those who obtained Spanish nationality under the Law of Democratic Memory are legally enshrined and cannot be reversed. The second is that electoral fraud with overseas voting is a real problem, but completely separate.
According to the lawyer, "the rights of the new Spaniards under the Law of Democratic Memory are established. Why? Because they are based on a law that has already followed its legal course." He went further: "A law from Congress cannot come now that reverses a situation because that would basically be unconstitutional. These are rights that are already established."
Pellitero recalled that the Law of Democratic Memory is the second version of the Law of Historical Memory from 2007, "which also granted Spanish nationality to hundreds of thousands of people from different nationalities." The deadline to apply under this regulation definitively closed on October 22, 2025, with over 350,000 Cubans having initiated procedures and 137,700 applications pending at the Spanish Consulate in Havana.
Regarding electoral fraud, the lawyer acknowledged that it is a reality, but emphasized that it should not be confused with the legitimacy of the new citizens. "Electoral fraud is a reality. It does not have to be contrasted with the fact that the people who applied under the Law of Democratic Memory are full-fledged Spaniards." He also pointed out that "the fraud is concentrated precisely in those places where it is more complicated," citing Cuba and Argentina as examples.
On his part, his colleague Reimel Ariosa focused his explanation on the technical mechanism that fuels the controversy. In his opinion, the problem originates from the fact that Spanish consulates require newly naturalized citizens to register in the consular registry to obtain a passport, which automatically enrolls them in the CERA —the Electoral Census of Absentee Residents— and enables them to vote.
For Ariosa, the key lies in who designs that access. "The intention may not be with the voter, but with the one who grants you the access to have the ability to vote."
The controversy intensified on June 30 when Vox requested the Central Electoral Board to audit and suspend mass registrations in the CERA, ban voting by mail from abroad, and annul the instruction of the Law of Grandchildren, accusing the PSOE of "electoral engineering" to create voters.
The party of Santiago Abascal also pointed out that the Government of Spain signed a contract in January 2025 worth 1.13 million euros with the Palco Business Group — a Cuban state company linked to the military conglomerate GAESA, sanctioned by the United States since May 2026 — to process applications at the Consulate in Havana.
The CERA census is approaching 3 million registered voters, although historical participation in overseas voting has always been low: barely 10% in the last general elections, compared to 6.85% in 2019. This sustained growth is precisely what triggered the political war in Spain regarding the law and overseas voting.
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