The digital vote

But perhaps the biggest success is the widespread usage of the new electronic voting systems. In the past, a Brazilian citizen could only vote in an election in his or her home city, because voter registrations were only maintained locally. This rendered voting difficult for business travelers, made electoral fraud easy and meant that it took a long time to determine the results of elections.

Brazil introduced the first electronic voting machines in 1996 and was the first country to have fully electronic elections. Today, its electronic voting system has gained widespread acceptance, partly because of the fact that it speeds up the vote count tremendously. In the 1989 presidential election between Fernando Collor de Mello and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the vote count required nine days. In the 2002 general election, the count took less than 12 hours – and some smaller towns were able to hear the results just minutes after the polls closed.

In the most recent elections, several cities tested new voting machines that verify voter registration via a fingerprint scanner. Voters simply swiped their fingerprints to prove their identity and then made their selections by pushing a button next to the name and photograph of the candidate of their choice.

The goal now is for other Latin American countries to not only follow in Brazil’s footsteps, but also come up with their own novel uses for the technology, finding new ways to improve on the efficiency and security of every aspect of digital life. Because the better things work, the more time there is to enjoy the other thing Brazilians do best: relaxing with an ice-cold coconut on the beach.

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