Last Friday, July 15, Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Court (TSE, in Portuguese) informed that this year’s elections, whose first round will happen on October 2, have 156.454.011 million registered and eligible voters.
According to TSE president minister Edson Fachin, the figures show the “civic strength of citizenship” and correspond to the largest registered electorate in Brazil’s history.
This year, Brazilians will vote for president of the Republic, governor, senator, and state deputy (in the case of the country’s Federal District, people vote for district deputy).
“This is another service provided by the Supreme Electoral Court, service which it has been providing throughout its 90 years of existence and during more than 25 years of the adoption of the electronic voting system for democracy and safe, transparent, and audible elections” Fachin highlighted in a video published by TSE.
The Brazilian electorate is distributed in 5,570 cities and towns, besides 181 voters in foreign cities. The voting will take place in 496,512 polling stations in 2,637 electoral zones.
According to statistics by the Electoral Justice, since the previous general elections in Brazil, in 2018, there was a rise of 6.21% in the total number of eligible voters. In that election, the total number of eligible voters was 147.306.275 million.
For 2022, supported by TSE Resolution No. 23,696/2022, 4,159,079 million voters had the cancellation of the title reversed for this year's elections in the context of the covid-19 pandemic. In the past four years, the number of voters in foreign countries also increased. It jumped from 500,727 in 2018 to 697,078 in 2022, which represents a rise of 39.21%. These 697,078 Brazilians correspond to 0.45% of the total eligible electorate this year.
Women are the majority
The 2022 Electoral Register shows that, once again, most of the Brazilian electorate is formed by women. All told, there are 82.373.164 million female voters, which means 52.65% of all the country’s voters. Men are 74.044.065 million, that is, 47.33%. There are also 36,782 voters about whom there is no gender information; they represent 0.02% of all Brazilian voters.
Chosen name
For the third time in a row, the Electoral Justice will guarantee that transgender, transsexual, and queer people have their chosen names printed on their voter registration cards and also on the voter list.
This year, 37,646 voters will use their chosen names, representing 0.02% of all eligible voters nationwide. In 2018, this same group had 7,945 people, a rise of 29,701 people who opted for their chosen names when registering or updating their data in the Electoral Justice system. In terms of gender, there are 20,129 female voters and 17,517 male voters who will use their social names in the 2022 elections.
Geographical distribution
São Paulo state maintains its position as Brazil’s largest electoral college, with 22.16% of all voters. It means that one out of every five voters in the country lives in São Paulo. The state is followed by Minas Gerais, with 10.41% of all Brazilian voters, and Rio de Janeiro state, which has 8.2%. Altogether, Brazil’s southeastern region has 42.64% of the country’s electorate.
On the other hand, the three Brazilian states with the smallest electorates are in the North region, which accounts for only 8.03% of the voters. The states of Roraima (0.23%), Amapá (0.35%), and Acre (0.38%) are the federated units with the smallest number of voters, respectively. Still with regard to regions, the Northeast comes right after the Southeast region, with 27.11% of the electorate. It is followed by Brazil’s South (14.42%), North (8.03%), and Midwest (7.38%) regions.
Among Brazilian cities, the city of São Paulo also holds the largest number of voters, with 9.314.259 million people. It is followed by the city of Rio de Janeiro (5.002.621 million), Brasília (2.203.045 million), Belo Horizonte (2.006.854 million), and Salvador (1.983.198 million).
The smallest electoral colleges are in the cities of Borá (São Paulo state), with 1,040; Araguainha (Mato Grosso state), with 1,042; Serra da Saudade (Minas Gerais state), with 1,107; Engenho Velho (Rio Grande do Sul state), with 1,213; and Anhanguera (Goiás state), with 1,234.
Schooling
As for the level of education, voter registration data shows that the majority of voters declared they completed high school, 41.161.552 million, which accounts for 26.31% of the total number of voters. In the previous elections, in 2018 and 2014, the largest group of the electorate was made up of people with incomplete primary education.
This year, the total number of Brazilian voters who said they have incomplete primary education was 35.930.401 million, that is, 22.97% of the electorate. This group is followed by people with incomplete high school education (16.65%). 17.127128 million people said they have graduate or college degrees.
Voters abroad
The Regional Electoral Court of the Federal District also released the number of Brazilian voters registered to participate from abroad. This is 679,188 people eligible to vote in next October’s general election, of which 281,311 are male and 397,877 are female. These voters can only vote for the presidency.
The United States have the largest number of Brazilian citizens with regular voter registration cards, followed by Japan and Portugal, respectively. However, there are dozens of other countries with Brazilian voters registered to participate in the coming elections. They include Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Swaziland, Tonga, and others. There are 1,865 teenagers registered and 20,916 people over 70 years old. But the largest number of voters are between 36 and 45 years old, just like in Brazil. Most Brazilian voters abroad have completed higher education. 837 are illiterate.
Biometric voter registration
The Supreme Electoral Court also informed that three out of every four voters have already registered their fingerprints. In total, 118.151.926 voters will be identified through fingerprints, which accounts for 75.51% of the total electorate. Other 38.320.884 million Brazilians, that is, 24.48%, still do not register their fingerprints.
Compared to previous years, the overall increase is considerable. In 2018, 59.31% of the electorate had completed the biometric registration process. In 2004, 16.7% of the voters had finished the same process. As to the 5,570 Brazilian cities and towns, in 2022, a total of 4,510 of them have biometric registration (80.97%). There are still 998 cities and towns whose voter registration system is hybrid (17.92%), and another 62 did not adopt biometric voter registration (1.11%). Eighteen Brazilian states have adopted biometric registration in all their cities and towns.
Electoral map of states
One month before the official start of election campaigns, to start on August 16, Brasil de Fato conducted a survey about the electoral race scenario. This was done to understand the profile of the contenders leading the polls and how the local situation can influence the presidential race.
The survey shows a balance in the distribution of allies of the main presidential contenders who lead polls in their home states. President Jair Bolsonaro (Liberal Party) already has mutual support agreements in eight states. Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party) has support agreements in six states.
Support agreements were not sealed or depend on official announcements in Amazonas, Bahia, Ceará, Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Pará, and Piauí. In the state of Rio de Janeiro, there is a virtual tie between governor contenders Cláudio Castro (Liberal Party), a Bolsonaro supporter, and Marcelo Freixo (Brazilian Socialist Party), a Lula supporter.
Minas Gerais is the only state whose candidate leading the polls, Romeu Zema (New Party), will not support neither Lula nor Bolsonaro. Zema is supporting Felipe D’Ávila, New Party presidential pre-candidate.
The only governor contenders to win elections in the first round are Antônio Carlos Magalhães Neto (Union Brazil), in the state of Bahia, and Helder Barbalho (Brazilian Democratic Movement), in the state of Pará, according to polls in these states.
Fonte: BdF Distrito Federal
Edited by: Flávia Chacon e Flávia Quirino
