Electoral system of Brazil
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Voting | |
|---|---|
| Universal, secret and direct | |
| Mandatory | Literate people aged 18 to 70[1] |
| Optional | People aged 16-17 or over 70 years old and illiterate people aged 18 to 70 |
| Candidacy | |
| Elective offices | |
| Executive offices | President, governor and mayors[1] |
| Legislative offices | Senators, federal representatives, state representatives, district representatives and city councillors[1] |
| Term length | 8 years for senators and 4 years for all other offices.[6] |
| Frequency | Biennial alternation between municipal elections and federal and state elections[6] |
| Campaign financing | |
| Private | Limited self donations and limited individual donations |
| Public | Federal Party Fund and party political broadcast |
| Voting method and ballot | |
| Two-round system | President, governors and mayors in cities with more than 200,000 inhabitants[7] |
| First-past-the-post | Senators (alternating every 4 years) and mayors in cities with less than 200,000 inhabitants[7] |
| Plurality block voting | Senators (alternating every 4 years)[7] |
| Open list proportional representation | Federal, state and district representatives and city councillors[7] |
| Ballot | Electronic[1] |
| This article is part of a series on the |
| Politics of Brazil |
|---|
 |
|
|
The electoral system of Brazil is the set of means used to choose representatives and government members of the Federative Republic of Brazil. The current system is defined by the 1988 Constitution and the Electoral Code (Law No. 4,737 of 1965), in addition to being regulated by the Superior Electoral Court (Portuguese: Tribunal Superior Eleitoral, TSE) as delegated by law. The Constitution itself already defines three distinct electoral systems, which are detailed in the Electoral Code: proportional elections for the Chamber of Deputies, mirrored in the legislative branches at the state (Legislative Assemblies) and municipal (City Council) levels, majority elections with one or two elected representatives to the Federal Senate and majority elections in two rounds for president and other executive heads in other spheres.
The majority or plurality system is used in Brazil to elect the chief executive of all spheres (president, governors and mayors), and also for elections to the Federal Senate.[8]
In presidential elections, the system employed is the Two-Round system to achieve absolute majority, where a person needs to obtain more than 50% of the valid votes, disregarding scratch and spoilt votes, to be elected. In order to ensure that this majority is obtained in a multi-party system, the election is held in two rounds. The first one is disputed by all the candidates, and the second is disputed only by the two best placed candidates in the first round. The second round only takes place if no candidate reaches an absolute majority in the first round of the election.[9] This system is also used in elections for state governors and mayor of municipalities with more than 200,000 voters.[10] In case of a tie, the age of the candidates is taken into account, and the oldest is elected.[11]
The Federal Senate is renewed every four years in proportions of one third in one election and two thirds in the following, using first-past-the-post voting and plurality block voting respectively. Each state has three senators, regardless of its population size. Senators serve staggered terms. As the position of senator lasts eight years, each state elects one or two senators every four years. The election for the Senate takes place within each state, to choose the senators who will represent that state.
When only one member must be chosen, the candidate with a plurality of votes is used with separate elections for each state. In this system, known as First-past-the-post, each voter votes for only one candidate and the one who obtains the largest number of votes wins the election, without the need for a second round even if he does not obtain a majority. This system is also used to elect mayors of municipalities with less than 200,000 voters.[9][12]
When two members are chosen, block voting is used -- each voter has two votes and the two candidates with the most votes are elected even if they do not have a majority.[13]