Domonkos Polonyi

Electronic voting has already been discussed in one of the contributions to this project. Clearly Covid sparked an interest in this innovative method of voting, while the recent elections in Brazil have directed some spotlight on how it is managed in practice. This article explores what the Brazilian example has to offer for countries in the Visegrád region and more generally for decisionmakers who consider introducing e-voting.

In Brazil, electronic voting is the exclusive way to cast one’s ballots. The country’s voting machines were put into use for the first time in 1996, only in certain regions to test them. One year later, after positive experiences, a new electoral law was adopted which laid down the legal framework of e-voting. The elections of 2000 marked the launching of the e-voting system nationwide.

Brazilian voters have to remember a code for the candidate they wish to support. The voting machine has a keyboard and a small screen. When the voter approaches the machine, they have to enter the code of their candidate, upon which the candidate belonging to the code appears on the screen. If the correct politician shows up, the voter has to press the “confirm” button. The machine stores the vote in a completely anonymous way, and at the end of the day, it communicates the number of votes for each candidate.

As straightforward as this system sounds, it has not led to election results accepted by all. Quite the contrary. The claims of former President Bolsonaro related to election fraud and manipulation can be traced back to his aversion to this system. Tensions around e-voting have a long history in Brazil. Some political groups, which Bolsonaro is a prominent member of, have pushed for modifications as early as 2009. Their continued aim is to add an element to the procedure that they see as a fundamental guarantee. This element is to arrange for the machine to print a paper ballot after the vote is cast. The ballots should be collected separately, so that they can be later compared to the results of the machine. The proponents of printing ballots do not want the papers to be counted in every constituency, only in a proportion of them that would be significant enough to allow to uncover any irregularities of the machine calculations. 

This suggestion was formed into law and adopted by Brazilian Congress first in 2009, then again in 2015. The Federal Supreme Court declared both times that the measure was unconstitutional because it did not respect the secrecy of the voting. After the second unfavourable judgment, the proponents of the reform tried to reach their goal by amending the Constitution. In 2021 they set out to form the majority needed in Congress to pass this amendment, with a massive support coming from President Bolsonaro’s side.

As the vote on the amendment was approaching, the head of the Superior Electoral Court, an independent body that has both judicial and administrative functions related to elections, engaged in the discussions concerning e-voting. President Barroso claimed that the proposed system of printing ballots was particularly prone to frauds and launched a campaign spreading news about the technological safeguards taken for the integrity of e-voting in its current form. In return President Bolsonaro caused turmoil by calling him an “imbecile” and arguing that “a single man cannot decide the future of Brazil”. The relationship between the judicial and the executive branch turned even more sour after Bolsonaro had repeatedly alleged that he was robbed of a first-round victory in 2018 because the e-voting system was manipulated, upon which Barroso recommended an investigation into whether the head of state’s conduct constituted a crime related to fake news. In another strong statement Bolsonaro pledged that the 2022 elections would either be organized cleanly or not organized at all. In August 2021 the Congress rejected the constitutional amendment. In the end this year’s elections were held without any profound changes to the upstanding procedure.

In my view, the example of Brazil shows that the introduction of e-voting does not necessarily heighten the trust of the electorate and the political groups in the fairness of elections, and it does not necessarily bring about political consensus. In countries that have similar political dynamics to Brazil’s, e-voting might instead have a potential to catalyse political conflicts. This should be considered by all states before opting for switching to e-voting, either in the Visegrád region, where electronic voting has been set up only for the Hungarian oppositional primaries during the Autumn of 2021.

November 2022

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The views expressed above belong to the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Centre for Social Sciences.