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Elections in Brazil

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Brazil elects on the national level a head of state – the president – and a legislature. The president is elected to a four-year term by absolute majority vote through a two-round system. The National Congress (Congresso Nacional) has two chambers. The Chamber of Deputies (Câmara dos Deputados) has 513 members, elected to a four-year term by proportional representation. The Federal Senate (Senado Federal) has 81 members, elected to an eight-year term, with elections every four years for alternatively one-third and two-third of the seats. Brazil has a multi-party system, with such numerous parties that often no one party has a chance of gaining power alone, and so they must work with each other to form coalition governments.

Schedule

Election

Position 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Type Presidential (October)
National Congress (October)
Gubernatorial (October)
States and Federal District Parliaments (October)		 None Mayors (October)
City Councils (October)		 None Presidential (October)
National Congress (October)
Gubernatorial (October)
States and Federal District Parliaments (October)		 None Mayors (October)
City Councils (October)		 None
President and
vice president 		President and vice president None President and vice president None
National Congress All seats (Chamber of Deputies)
One third (Federal Senate)		 None All seats (Chamber of Deputies)
Two thirds (Federal Senate)		 None
States, cities and municipalities All positions (States and Federal District) None All positions (Municipalities) None All positions (States and Federal District) None All positions (Municipalities) None

Inauguration

Position 2011 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
Type Presidential (January)
National Congress (January)
Gubernatorial (January)
States and Federal District Parliaments (January)		 None Mayors (January)
City Councils (January)		 None Presidential (January)
National Congress (January)
Gubernatorial (January)
States and Federal District Parliaments (January)		 None Mayors (January)
City Councils (January)		 None
President and
vice president 		1 January None 1 January None
National Congress 1 February None 1 February None
States, cities and municipalities 1 January None 1 January None 1 January None 1 January None

Electoral systems

Deputies are elected to the Chamber of Deputies using a form of party-list proportional representation known as the "open list."[1]

Senators are elected to the Federal Senate with a plurality of the vote in a first-past-the-post system, which is not proportional.[2] Three senators are elected for each state and for the Federal District.[3]

The Brazilian voting machines

Electronic voting was first introduced to Brazil in 1996; with the first tests carried out in the state of Santa Catarina. The primary design goal of the Brazilian voting machine is extreme simplicity, the model being a public phone booth.

File:Urna eletrônica.jpeg
Electronic voting machine used in the 2005 referendum.

The first Brazilian voting machines were developed in 1996 by a Brazilian partnership of three companies OMNITECH (previously known as TDA), Microbase and Unisys do Brasil attending the TSE RFP for the Brazilian Elections in 1996. This machine was a modified IBM PC 80386 compatible clone, known as UE96. In 1998, Diebold-Procomp, Microbase and Samurai (formerly known as OMNITECH) partnered to produce UE98. In 2000, Microbase and Diebold-Procomp developed the UE2000 together. In 2000, Brazil completed the first completely automated election.

The original operating system was VirtuOS, similar to DOS and includes multitasking support, was developed by Microbase. It was used in the 1996, 1998 and 2000 elections. In 2002, Unisys was unable to renew their partnership with Microbase, and were unable to reuse the VirtuOS based code. Microsoft stepped in, and provided licenses Windows CE operating system free of charge. In 2008, Diebold-Procomp migrated to a Linux OS to reduce costs.[4]

The Brazilian voting machine accomplishes three steps (voter identification, secure voting and tallying) in a single process, eliminating fraud based on forged or falsified public documents. Political parties have access to the voting machine's programs before the election for auditing. There still remain some questions about the security of the electronic voting system, but no case of election fraud has been uncovered:

  1. Critics argue that the voting machines do not produce receipt for the voter, nor maintain an internal paper based journal which would allow for vote auditing. This makes them highly dependent on trusting the software. The application program which verifies the internal integrity of the system is itself vulnerable to modification. [3] An inspection by the City of Sto. Estevão, Bahia described the system of seals and closure of the machine as simple, and allowed easy access to the internal memory slot. [4] [5]
  2. It is possible to violate the secrecy of the vote, obtaining the list of the Voter registry IDs and the order of the votes. So by simple comparison one could determine which ID voted for which candidate.
  3. Election workers could vote in place absent voters without their permission. However, as voting sections are composed of multiple workers drawn at random from the population as a means of preventing this type of fraud.
UE 2000 transparent prototype. Brazilian voting machine developed by Diebold-Procomp and used in the October 2000 general elections.

On the eve of an election, the election authorities in each State select a number of voting machines by lot (all available voting machines take part in that lot, identified by their serial number), and those machines so selected, instead of being used in actual pooling stations, are retained in the seat of the State's Regional Electoral Court for a "parallel voting", conducted for audit purposes in the presence of representatives designated by the political parties. The audit vote takes place on the same date as the election. This parallel voting is a mock election but the votes entered in the voting machine are not secret, instead they are witnessed by all party representatives present at the audit process. The whole audit is filmed, and the representatives of the political parties present for the audit direct publicly that a random quantity of votes are to be inserted in the machine for each candidate. A tally is kept of the instructions received from each party representative. Each party representative orders a number of votes to be inserted at the machine, but he only reveals that number, and the recipients, during the audit. So, the numbers are not previously known, because the only way they could be known by others is if there were a collusion between rival parties. At the end of the process, then, when all the parties have directed that certain number of votes then chosen are to be registered for each candidate in the audit vote, the votes ordered to be inserted by each party representative for each candidate are added up, and the total number of votes of the mock election is known, as well as the total number of votes of each candidate. Once the mock votes end and the profile of the vote is known, the electronic counting of the votes contained in the voting machines used during the audit takes place. The result indicated by the voting machines software has to correspond to the previously known result. As the machines were selected at random by lot, if the result given by the software corresponds to the previously known result resulting from the sum of the parties's public instructions (which has happened in all elections so far), the system is deemed by the election authorities as reliable for receiving, properly registering and accurately tallying the votes. Given that the machines are chosen at random, the reliability of the chosen ones is deemed to represent the reliability of the others. If the audit failed to produce a positive result (the matching of the votes counted to the sum of the instructions), then the whole election in the State in question would be void.

The voting system has been widely accepted, due in great part to the fact that it speeds up the vote count tremendously. In the 1989 presidential election between Fernando Collor de Mello and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the vote count required nine days. In the 2002 general election, the count required less than 12 hours. In some smaller towns the election results are known minutes after the closing of the ballots.

Supporters of the electronic vote claim that unless the fraud were intentionally designed into the machines, it would be impossible to carry an extensive fraud in such a small amount of time. The Brazilian Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) regularly funds research aimed at improving security. The source code to the voting software is proprietary and the public is not able to examine it. In order to be able to recount the votes, a printing system has been developed and a new electoral registration system is planned.[5][6]

Brazil loans the machines to other countries. They have been used for elections in Paraguay and Ecuador, and there are plans to export the patented machines.

A new biometrics-based voting machine, with an additional apparatus that does the voter's fingerprint recognition before allowing the ballot to be cast, started being used in 2012.[7] TSE is gradually gathering the fingerprints of all registered voters to spread the process, that will be used by 22 million voters in the 2014 general election.[8]

On November 30, 2015, the Supreme Electoral Court of Brazil announced that due to the severe budged cuts enforced by president Dilma Rousseff the voting machines would not be used for the 2016 elections.[9]

2010 general election

Main article: Brazilian general election, 2010

Presidential election

Template:Brazilian presidential election, 2010

Parliamentary election

e • d Summary of the 3 October 2010 National Congress election results
Coalition Parties Chamber Senate
Seats % of seats +/– Elected seats Total seats % of seats +/–
Lulista   PT 88 17.1 +5 12 15 18.5 +7
  PMDB 79 15.3 −10 16 20 24.6 +3
  PR 41 7.9 +16 3 4 4.9 —
  PSB 34 6.6 +7 3 3 3.7 —
  PDT 28 5.4 +4 2 4 4.9 −2
  PSC 17 3.3 +8 1 1 1.2 —
  PCdoB 15 2.9 +2 1 2 2.4 +1
  PRB 8 1.5 +7 1 1 1.2 −1
  PTC 1 0.1 −2 0 0 0.0 —
  PTN 0 0.0 — 0 0 0.0 —
Total 311 60.6 +37 39 50 61.7 +8
Opposition
Centre-right 		  PSDB 53 10.3 −13 5 11 13.5 −5
  DEM 43 8.3 −22 2 6 7.4 −7
  PTB 21 4.0 −2 1 6 7.4 −1
  PPS 12 2.3 −10 1 1 1.2 +1
  PMN 4 0.7 +1 1 1 1.2 +1
  PTdoB 3 0.5 +2 0 0 0.0 —
Total 136 26.5 –44 10 25 30.8 –11
Lulista
Out of coalition 		  PP 41 7.9 — 3 4 4.9 +3
Opposition
Out of coalition 		  PV 15 2.9 +2 0 0 0.0 −1
Opposition
Out of coalition 		  PSOL 3 0.5 — 2 2 2.4 +1
Lulista
Out of coalition 		  PHS 2 0.3 — 0 0 0.0 —
Lulista
Out of coalition 		  PRP 2 0.3 +2 0 0 0.0 —
Lulista
Out of coalition 		  PRTB 2 0.3 +2 0 0 0.0 —
Lulista
Out of coalition 		  PSL 1 0.1 +1 0 0 0.0 —

Past elections and referendums

Election results 1982–2014

Brazilian legislative elections (Chamber of Deputies), 1982–2014

Parties 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014
Workers' Party 03.5 06.9 10.2 12.8 13.2 18.4 15.0 16.9 14.0
Brazilian Democratic Movement Party 43.0 48,1 19.3 20.3 15.2 13.4 14.6 13.0 11.1
Brazilian Social Democracy Party - - 08.7 13.9 17.5 14.3 13.6 11.9 11.4
Liberal Front Party/Democrats - 17.7 12.4 12.9 17.3 13.4 10.9 07.6 04.2
Liberal Party / Republic Party - 02.8 04.3 03.5 02.5 04.3 04.4 07.6 05.8
Brazilian Socialist Party - 00.9 01.9 02.2 03.4 05.3 06.2 07.1 06.5
Progressive Party - - - 06.9 11.3 07.8 07.1 06.6 06.4
Democratic Labour Party 05.8 06.5 10.0 07.2 05.7 05.1 05.2 05.0 03.6
Brazilian Labour Party 04.5 04.5 05.6 05.2 05.7 04.6 04.7 04.2 04.0
Green Party - - - 00.1 00.4 01.3 03.6 03.8 02.1
Social Christian Party - - 00.8 00.5 00.7 00.6 01.9 03.2 02.5
Communist Party of Brazil - 00.8 00.9 01.2 01.3 02.2 02.1 02.8 02.0
Popular Socialist Party - 00.9 01.0 00.6 01.3 03.1 03.9 02.6 02.0
Brazilian Republican Party - - - - - - 00.3 01.7 04.5
Socialism and Liberty Party - - - - - - 01.2 01.2 01.8
Party of National Mobilization - - 00.6 00.6 00.5 00.3 00.9 01.1 00.5
Democratic Social / Reform Progressive Party 43.2 07.8 08.9 09.4 - - - - -
National Reconstruction Party / Christian Labour Party - - 08.3 00.4 00.1 00.1 00.9 00.6 00.7
Christian Democratic Party / Christian Social Democratic Party - 01.2 03.0 - 00.1 00.2 00.4 00.2 00.5
Party of the Reconstruction of the National Order - - - 00.7 00.9 02.1 01.0 - -
Social Democratic Party - - - - - - - - 06.2
Republican Party of the Social Order - - - - - - - - 02.0
Solidarity - - - - - - - - 02.7
National Labour Party - - - - 00.1 00.1 00.2 00.2 00.4
National Ecologic Party - - - - - - - - 00.7
Labour Party of Brazil - - 00.2 - 00.3 00.2 00.3 00.7 00.8
Humanist Party of Solidarity - - - - - 00.3 00.5 00.8 00.9
Progressive Republican Party - - 00.2 00.5 00.4 00.3 00.3 00.3 00.7
Social Liberal Party - - - - 00.3 00.5 00.2 00.5 00.8
Brazilian Labour Renewal Party - - - 00.1 00.1 00.3 00.2 00.3 00.5
Others 00.0 02.8 03.7 00.7 01.7 01.5 00.4 00.0 00.7

Source: [6] Source: [7]

Referendums

Brazil has held three national referendums in its history. In the first, held on January 6, 1963, the people voted for the re-establishment of the presidential system of government (82% of valid ballots), which had been modified by a constitutional amendment in 1961. A second referendum, as ordered by the Federal Constitution of 1988, was held on April 21, 1993, when the voters voted for a republican form of government and reaffirmed the presidential system.

A third national referendum, on the prohibition of the commerce of personal firearms and ammunition, was held on October 23, 2005. The ban proposal was rejected by 64% of the voterate.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Grumpy about voting reform". The Economist. 2011-02-22. Retrieved 2011-05-04. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ "The Federal Senate". Portal da Câmara dos Deputados. Retrieved 2011-05-04.
  3. ^ Andrianantoandro, Andy (2010-10-14). "Brazil's Presidential Hopefuls Face Runoff, National Congress Needs Reform". FairVote.org. Retrieved 2011-05-04.
  4. ^ Urna eletrônica troca Windows por software livre Template:Pt icon
  5. ^ A urna eletrônica pode ser violada?, Superinteressante Template:Pt icon
  6. ^ Urna eletrônica completa 18 anos com comemoração do TSE e preocupação de especialistas
  7. ^ [1]
  8. ^ Recadastramento Biométrico
  9. ^ [2]
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