It is impossible to know how many times the vote abroad has caused a seat to change hands. Until 1985, the rest were counted on election night. There was very little, but, as was later demonstrated, if the differences in assigning deputies with the internal vote were negligible, the external vote could cause alterations. Who knows if there were? And the only time the color of a government was decided abroad was in Asturias in 2012, with very few traveling ballots.
The Asturian was one of the eleven changes that occurred in regional elections between 1989 and 2012, plus one in the Senate, in El Hierro. Maybe there were some more, since following this trail was never easy, especially in the past. Sometimes modifications were reported, such as in Barcelona in 2008 or the one announced by the ultra Rocío Monasterio in May, which corresponded to challenges from internal tables.
The foreign vote modifies the result in seats when the distribution would have been different if only residents in Spain voted. Under this criterion, a colossal leap has been observed since 2019, sealed with the definitive confirmation that the PP snatched a deputy from the PSOE in Madrid on June 23, which has an impact on the conditions of the investiture. It happened for the first time in a general election that is known on November 10, 2019 in Vizcaya, with the PNV as the victim and the PP as the beneficiary. And it also happened at the regional level in 2020, in Pontevedra, in favor of the popular ones and to the detriment of the socialists, as well as in Vizcaya, again, where the PP took away a parliamentarian from Bildu. At the same time, the PSOE took a seat in the Senate in Zamora from the PP in April 2019 and another in Valladolid in November of the same year.
In the transfer of the minutes of deputies, electoral chance plays its role and also the mutation of the party system, because there are more forces competing for the last seats at stake in the constituencies, which reduces the differences. If these are very large, it does not matter if there are many outside votes. If they are small, with a result that differs from that of the interior and with a sufficient number of ballots, the change in the foreign count occurs. And now more votes are arriving, not so much because of the abolition of the “requested vote”, but because of the uncontrolled increase in the census. In the 2000 general elections, 23% participated. On 23-J, 9%. But in both there were about 200,000 expatriate ballots.
The PSOE, which had traditionally been the biggest beneficiary of the movements caused by the diaspora, was left with the consolation of two more senators in 2019. The balance, as always disastrous for nationalism, clearly favors the PP, especially qualitatively, with two changes in his favor in Congress, and with the transcendence of the Madrid native. Luck has been very much on their side, but it has also been reinforced abroad, which is no stranger to the fact that this area, with both Casado and Feijóo, has been run by Galicians, and not by a “Genoese” like Alfredo Prada, that opened a Tel Aviv headquarters!
That of 23-J was the first popular victory abroad in a general election in 19 years. Nothing ensures that they will not be the ones who will give up the next seat, but with a view to a hypothetical January general election, just as the Basques, the Galicians, above all, and even the Catalans, in principle have a planetary weapon.
