1 million people in Catalonia cannot vote in 2023 local elections

Gaissiry Sow, who moved to Catalonia from Senegal as a child, is one of the estimated 1 million adults who will not be able to vote in the upcoming local elections on May 28 according to the Coordinadora d'ONGs Solidàries, a third-sector organization that has been campaigning to extend this right. 

"This should change because I'm a resident and I work and study here," Sow said at a recent press conference with the entity in Salt, near the northern city of Girona. "Political decisions affect me directly," she continued, complaining that not being allowed to vote was "like being a background character in a movie." 

Non-citizen voting is not that far-fetched of a concept: both Ireland and Luxembourg, for example, allow all non-EU residents to vote in local elections regardless of how long they have lived in the country, while The Netherlands lets them do so if they have resided there for at least five years. 

But at the moment, the only non-Spanish nationals who can vote in local elections in Catalonia are residents from the EU and the 13 countries with reciprocity agreements with Spain: Bolivia, Cabo Verde, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Iceland, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, South Korea, Trinidad and Tobago, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. 

Over 67,000 foreign voters

A total of 67,379 foreigners from these countries have registered to vote on May 28, over 95% of which are European, with Italian, Romanian, and French residents topping the list.  

"For me, it is very important to have my vote," Sally Veall, one of the 2,881 British voters in Catalonia, told Catalan News from her home in the Costa Brava. "I've been in Palafrugell since 2009 and it's my town and I'm well integrated here. It's where I live, I pay my taxes here."

And while she is thankful to have this right, especially now that she no longer has it in her home country, she lamented the lack of information provided to her and other foreign residents about how and when to register. 

Veall said she waited at her town hall "for nearly an hour" while local authorities figured out how to add her to the electoral census, a process that should also be available online. 

"They did not have a clue," she said. "This isn't good because for me it's not a problem but for some people, it's a big effort to go to their town hall to try to register to vote in their local elections, which they have every right to do."