Brazil Counts 125 Million Votes in Under 4 Hours as Paperless System Draws U.S. Attention
Updated
Updated · Fox News · Oct 23
Brazil Counts 125 Million Votes in Under 4 Hours as Paperless System Draws U.S. Attention
3 articles · Updated · Fox News · Oct 23
Summary
About 125 million Brazilians cast ballots on Oct. 4, and the country knew within four hours that Flavio Bolsonaro and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva were headed to an Oct. 25 runoff.
499,248 voting machines used in the first round never connected to the internet, while nearly 9 in 10 voters were biometrically verified by fingerprint before unlocking a machine.
Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court says no proven fraud has been found since the system’s 1996 debut; software was open for 11 months of inspection, and 149 invited testers last December found no flaw that could alter results or expose votes.
Each machine prints a local tally with a QR code for public cross-checking against the national count, though critics including the Carter Center argue voters should also see an individual paper ballot.
With U.S. midterms 11 days away, Brazil’s centralized, no-mail-ballot model is being cited as a faster and potentially more secure contrast to America’s fragmented state-by-state election system.