Brazil is capable of knowing the winner of its presidential elections in a few hours thanks to an electronic voting and counting system that began to be implemented in 1996 and reached the entire electorate in 2000. Its operation combines the counting at each polling station with the transmission and summation of the results under the supervision of the electoral justice.
The speed has a concrete precedent: in the presidential runoff of 2022, the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) considered Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva elected at 19:56, Brasília time, with 98.91% of the ballots counted. Two hours and 56 minutes had passed since the scheduled closing of the voting, at 17:00.
How votes are counted in Brazil
The process begins at the electronic voting machines that citizens use to vote. These machines operate without internet connection and record the votes cast in each electoral section, equivalent to the voting unit of a table.
Once the voting is concluded, each machine performs the counting and generates the so-called Boletim de Urna. This document collects the votes obtained by each candidate, the blank votes, and the null votes, as well as information about the number of registered voters and participation.
The record is printed and a copy must be displayed in a visible place in the electoral section. In this way, the result of each polling station can be consulted before comparing it with the data incorporated into the general count.
From the result of each polling station to the national sum
After the counting of each machine, the transmission of the files to the electoral justice begins. The data is digitally signed and encrypted, and undergoes authenticity, integrity, and consistency checks before being summed.
This second phase is called totalização. It consists of gathering the results that each polling station has already calculated and aggregating them to obtain the electoral result. The publication is updated as the files from the different sections are received and processed.
The transmission must also adapt to the dimensions and geography of Brazil. In hard-to-reach locations, such as certain riverside communities and indigenous villages, the results can be sent via satellite connections.
Since when has Brazil been using electronic voting machines
The implementation of electronic ballots was progressive. They were debuted in the 1996 municipal elections, when they reached approximately one third of the electorate. Their use expanded in the general elections of 1998.
In the municipal elections of 2000, electronic voting reached the entirety of the national electorate for the first time. Therefore, the system has been in operation for three decades since its debut in 2026, although during that time the equipment has been renewed and its technological mechanisms developed.
How long it takes to know the winner
The electronic counting allows for results to be available during the same election night. In 2022, the TSE mathematically considered Lula's victory resolved at 19:56, when there were still ballots to be incorporated. The total of 100% of the sections was completed at 00:18 the next day, Brasília time: seven hours and 18 minutes after the scheduled closing. Knowing the winner and completing the counting are, therefore, two distinct moments.
The speed comes from the fact that each machine delivers the result of its section at the end of the voting. After that, the necessary time depends on the reception, the verifications, and the incorporation of those records into the national total.
Why the leading candidate may change
The partial results reflect the sections whose data have already been incorporated. As the files arrive at different times and electoral support varies between territories, the leadership can change during the counting.
The first percentages should be interpreted as a provisional result of the ballots received up to that moment. The TSE itself allows consulting how the total evolves by territories and comparing the records of each section with the published data.