The rule, exactly. Before an election each citizen chooses: to vote — or to take a payment and not vote in that election. The payment is a percentage of the median income, set by referendum; there is no fixed sum. One ballot is one vote, with no multiplier in the count; the vote is amplified only in that each ballot's share grows as others step out. The budget pays under law; a candidate never pays. Only a referendum of all citizens — simple majority, no quorum — introduces, changes or repeals the rule.

The protocol has been introduced nowhere and no pilot has been run: shares, turnout and outcome figures in the chapters are estimates, and the protocol promises nobody an election victory. If a chapter says otherwise, Exact Answers and the Charter are correct. For a candidate: ten questions and ten steps. For a citizen, a mayor, a finance officer, a donor, a journalist, a scholar, a lawyer: answers by role. Everything in force in one file: llms-full.txt.

🇪🇸 Spain, 29 November 2026: a Court Switches Off 163 Thousand Voters Seven Weeks Before the Election — the List as a Weapon and What the Protocol Does to It¶

Chapter: 09 — Other Countries File: 09_057f · v1 · 12 October 2026 Source: the architect's request of 12 October 2026: "the brightest election incident in Europe in the last two months". The case was found without selection for the protocol — the method of 059g §7; the Supreme Court's decision came on the day of writing. The architect: "I did not even know that the government's pre-election fight runs over something as simple as the list." Numbers are from the sources below; estimates are marked 🟡.

How to read. This is the European mirror of the American roll (059h): there the government purges the list, here it expands it, and a court purges on the opposition's appeal. The direction differs, the mechanism is one: a record on the list is free for everyone, and that is why it is fought over. The protocol makes the record costly for both sides, and the lever disappears.

1. What happened¶

The grandchildren's law. Law 20/2022 on democratic memory, eighth additional provision: nationality by option for descendants born abroad of Spaniards who lost nationality in exile; an instruction of 25 October 2022 presumes exile for everyone who left between 18 July 1936 and 31 December 1955 — only the departure need be proven. By summer 2026: 2.62 million applications, about 490–560 thousand approved (sources count differently), Argentina alone over 462 thousand applications; refusals 1.3 %.
The roll. CERA is the roll of Spaniards living abroad; closed on 1 August for the 29 November election: 2,747,688 people against 2,328,261 in July 2023 — 419,427 more; by the State Attorney's data, 369,017 new electors came through the grandchildren's law, of whom 168,896 through the presumption of exile.
The election. On 2 October PP, Vox and Junts voted down Sánchez's housing package; he dissolved the Cortes, the election is on 29 November 2026.
The court. On 10 September the Supreme Court, on appeals by Vox and Iustitia Europa against Central Electoral Commission Agreement 204/2026, provisionally suspended CERA registration of those who obtained nationality through the presumption (ATS 7773/2026 and 7774/2026); exempt are those holding a consular certificate of an ancestor's exile issued without the presumption. The State Attorney and the Prosecutor's Office asked for the measure to be lifted: reviewing nearly 170 thousand files was "a material impossibility". On 12 October, the day the roll closed, the Fourth Section dismissed the State Attorney's appeal five votes to one: the risk of "an irregularly constituted roll persists with the same intensity". 163,020 people do not vote on 29 November. Dissent by Judge Millán Herradis: once the election was called, the measure should have lapsed at least for this process.
Reactions. PP and Vox: the government is "manufacturing voters", the ruling ensures "clean elections". PSOE: "the grandchildren of Francoists vote, the grandchildren of exiles do not". Interior Minister Grande-Marlaska: "the right to vote is not so relevant to some".
Background. Turnout from abroad in 2023 — about a tenth of the CERA roll and 0.84 % of all votes; in 2023 the Spanish web buzzed about a "pucherazo" through CERA, debunked by fact-checkers. Pucherazo is the Spanish word for election rigging, "from the pot" (puchero): under the nineteenth-century Restoration results were "cooked" in advance by stuffing; a reservoir is a large list of people entitled to vote who do not vote and never learn whether a vote was cast for them: 2.5 million silent CERA records are living people overseas, for each of whom a ballot could in theory be cast without trace. Whether stuffing is real is unproven; but while the reservoir exists, the accusation "we were robbed" is irrefutable, and that breaks coordination as much as proven fraud (040v §6, Weingast).

2. The mechanism of the dispute: the record is free — so it is fought over¶

The government adds 370 thousand voters overseas counting on the loyalty of exiles' grandchildren; the opposition goes to court to remove them; the court decides seven weeks before the election who votes. Both sides fight over the list because a record on it costs nothing: not the voter, who may not know of it, not the government, which creates it by law, not the court, which extinguishes it by an interim measure. It is the same logic as Texas with the SAVE database (059h) and Missouri with the map (059g): the electoral law is written by those elected under it, and its cheapest lever is who is on the list (029 §29.11: "convenient when everyone guards for free what only you can use"). Spain and the US differ in direction — there they purge, here they expand — not in mechanism.

3. What the protocol does — point by point¶

Today	Under the protocol
the list as a weapon: adding 370 thousand loyal voters is a gain; removing them by court is the other side's gain	an added voter chooses A or B; an exile's grandchild in Buenos Aires has no stake in Spain, and most of the added will take B: the "voter factory" becomes a factory of expenses that buys not one vote; Vox has nothing to fear — nobody can be brought through a consulate, B is taken in secret (048m Art. 9 part 3); PSOE has nothing to gain. The nationality law stays — its electoral use is taken away (040s §4, the same move as with closed groups)
the reservoir of the silent: 2.75 million on CERA, 90 % do not vote — an object of fraud suspicions	90 % take B — counted and paid, double spend on the commission (Art. 5 part 3); no records nobody owns remain (059h §3), and the suspicion loses its object
"a material impossibility to review 170 thousand files"	the files are reviewed not by the State Attorney but by their owners: each of the 169 thousand has a payment at stake and brings the certificate of a grandfather's exile himself — a self-checking roll; suspending 163 thousand seven weeks before the election is 163 thousand lawsuits with a loss and a date, not a dispute about a right
the question is asked in court in disguise: which of those living abroad may vote	the protocol asks it openly and at a referendum: do we want 2.75 million overseas to decide, and are we willing to pay for it — the charter pays everyone with the right to vote (Art. 4), exclusions only by referendum; at p = 1.5 % of the median that is about €500 per person 🟡 and up to €1.4 billion per cycle if all take
moral dichotomy: Francoists' grandchildren against exiles' grandchildren	one price for all, punishment for none (040ab, the test "punishment or price"); the protocol does not ask whose grandchild you are

4. What remains¶

Whom to grant nationality is not the protocol's question; it neither repeals nor introduces the grandchildren's law.
Whether to pay abroad is a real objection, not a label: up to €1.4 billion per cycle to emigrants from the budget; the protocol does not decide it for the country, it forces the country to decide it aloud — the only form of the CERA dispute in which voters decide, not five judges against one.
Identity verification overseas is consular; the protocol adds a motive to bring the certificate, not consular hours.

5. Forecast for 29 November 🟡¶

The measure stays in force — the court will not rule on the merits in time; 163 thousand do not vote; turnout from abroad stays around a tenth of CERA, and the election's result does not depend on it (0.8 % of votes in 2023) — which shows the price of the whole battle: they fought over a list that hardly votes. If PP and Vox win a majority, the grandchildren's law will be narrowed; if PSOE, the presumption will return by statute. Under the protocol neither would be needed: the list would stop being worth fighting over.

Weak point¶

Written on the day of the decision, from the press and one explainer; there is no final ruling on the merits, and the figures 163,020 and 168,896 come from different sources with different dates. The €500 and €1.4 billion are rough estimates by median household income without a country setting. And the main objection of §4 — whether to pay emigrants — the protocol does not close but puts to a referendum, and Spain's honest answer may be "no".

Related: 059h · 059g item 2, §7 · 057e · 029 §29.11 · 040s §4 · 040ab · 1i · 048m Arts. 4, 5, 9

Sources: Vozpópuli, 12 Oct 2026: the court keeps the suspension · explainer on the CERA suspension · RTVC, 6 Oct 2026: 369,017 and 168,896 · El Español: the roll 2.33 → 2.75 million · Maldita: figures on the grandchildren's law · Maldita: the CERA "pucherazo" of 2023 · Wikipedia: the election of 29 Nov 2026