During the second round of the presidential election held on October 26th, Brazil successfully deployed its electronic voting system and confirmed once again its democratic calling.
Since 1996, Brazil has been using and upgrading its e-voting platform. For the presidential election, Brazil featured a 100% automated voting system. Furthermore, a plan to include more citizens in the biometric system -in order to validate the voter’s identity using his/her fingerprint- was applied, reaching up to 23.3 million of voters.
For this election, over a thousand equipment were repaired. The training plan was reinforced to reduce delays that could affect the electoral process.
The electronic voting system in Brazil is based on a machine with a small screen and a keypad in which the voters selects the numbers assigned to their candidates, checks their votes on the screen and press confirm.
At the end of the process, several results reports are printed and recorded on a magnetic disk. They are transmitted through a secure network managed by the Superior Electoral Court. The system is submitted to different audits and requires electronic signatures from all participants.
530,000 electronic voting machines were used in this election. Moreover citizens had the opportunity to download an application to their phones and tablets, to keep them informed about the process and to receive real-time results. Once again, electoral automation has been an ally to Brazil.
Source: https://votodigital.wordpress.com/