On October 5th, South America’s largest democracy will hold general elections.
To expedite the voting experience of citizens, speed vote processing, and enhance the overall transparency and security of the election, the Tribunal Superior Eletoral (TSE) -Brazil’s electoral authority- will deploy the same electronic voting platform it has used in every election since 1996. In total, 530,000 electronic voting machines will be available for the 141 million voters.
Brazil is now a world reference for its automated elections. Let’s look at the steps that have helped make this possible.
In 1932, the first Electoral College of the country established in its 57th article that “the use of voting machines will be regulated by the Superior Electoral College in due time”, guaranteeing the secrecy of votes forever.
The establishment of a single, automated voter registry in 1985 was the first step in the development of an automated voting system. By then, the Brazilian electorate was made up of 70 million voters.
In 1994, the Superior Electoral College carried out electronic scrutiny of the general election results for the first time, taking an important step in promoting the development of electronic voting machines. Later they achieved the necessary infrastructure for electronic voting.
In 1996, more than 32 million Brazilians cast their ballots on more than 70,000 electronic voting machines that had been built specifically for these elections. These machines were distributed to 57 different cities with more than 200,000 voters each, including 26 capitals.
Five years later, the electronic voting machines were distributed throughout the country for the first elections that were completely automated.
The implementation of electronic voting in Brazil has been widely considered to be successful. The continuous improvement of the technology has proven the commitment of the electoral commission in guaranteeing greater transparency and security to Brazilian citizens.
The extensive use of such modern platform, which is available to every Brazilian voter, has turned them into a model for the rest of the world.
Source: http://english.tse.jus.br/noticias-tse-en/2014/Julho/learn-about-the-history-of-brazilian-electronic-voting-machines-which-goes-back-18-years
