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apnews.com

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a vocal critic Donald Trump, was reelected Sunday in a result that provides relief to critics of widening U.S. influence in Latin America.

With 100% of the vote counted, Brazil’s electoral court announced that the soon to be 81-year-old Lula had a lead of nearly 4.4 million votes over opponent Flávio Bolsonaro, giving him 51.8% of the total vote. Bolsonaro quickly refused to concede defeat and asked for the election results to be annulled after an evening of chaos at some polling places that followed a last-minute decision to extend voting by two hours.

Bolsonaro is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, whom Lula defeated to take the presidency in 2022.

Lula’s triumph bucks a regional trend of victories for right-of-center presidential candidates allied with Trump. It also means Latin America’s largest economy, with a GDP of $2.6 trillion per year, will likely continue defying Trump’s demands, despite the pressure of increased tariffs.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.devEnglish
    1·
    1 day ago

    There is value in the brutal simplicity of pencil and paper, folding your ballot, and putting it in a box. It’s a system anyone can understand and that the human eye can audit.

    Which can also be easily falsified

    • MisterFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      19 hours ago

      No it can’t, and that’s the point.

      You have cast ballots always under multiple eyes, and have invigilators from all parties that supervise the vote counting.

      To pull off falsification would require a massive conspiracy that would almost 100% be leaked.

      Two great videos on the topic:

      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs

      In conclusion you’re incorrect in my opinion.

      • I Cast Fist@programming.devEnglish
        1·
        9 hours ago

        No it can’t, and that’s the point.

        Wrong, Brazil is proof of that.

        To pull off falsification would require a massive conspiracy that would almost 100% be leaked.

        It doesn’t matter if it leaks or not or how big the conspiracy is, if it happens it immediately casts doubt on the validity of whole process. Besides, “accidentally” getting rid of one or two votes, or “finding” one extra vote, has a bigger chance of going undetected and, even if caught, can be excused as “oops, my bad!”

        Brazil’s electoral frauds rarely aimed for presidential votes, they were much more often for state deputies and city councilors, where the difference between the last one getting elected and the first one out is usually very small. In the 1994 elections, the state of Rio de Janeiro had to null the results for state deputy and federal deputy. Fraud was rampant. https://www.terra.com.br/noticias/brasil/ha-30-anos-fraude-eleitoral-no-rio-apressou-projeto-da-urna-eletronica,e9c86b3b8ba6575111c5fed66407caf9qn1fx78n.html

        Some notable examples of fraud happening with paper, as per that article:

        • using a pencil lead under the nail to mark something on blank votes;
        • having the urn start out with a bunch of votes before voting even begins;
        • corrupt poll workers filling some of the reserve voting papers before closing the booth.

        You said in another comment something about “deeper social issues”. Guess what Brazil has in spades?