Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

elects on the national level a

head of state A head of state is the public persona of a sovereign state.#Foakes, Foakes, pp. 110–11 "

he head of state He or HE may refer to: Language * He (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads * He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English * He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana) * Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter cal ...

being an embodiment of the State itself or representative of its international persona." The name given to the office of head of sta ...

— the

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

— and a

legislature A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial power ...

. The president is elected to a four-year term by absolute majority vote through a

two-round system The two-round system (TRS or 2RS), sometimes called ballotage, top-two runoff, or two-round plurality, is a single-winner electoral system which aims to elect a member who has support of the majority of voters. The two-round system involves one ...

. The National Congress (''Congresso Nacional'') has two chambers. The

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourb ...

(''Câmara dos Deputados'') has 513 members, elected to a four-year term by

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

. The Federal Senate (''Senado Federal'') has 81 members, elected to an eight-year term, with elections every four years for alternatively one-third and two-thirds of the seats. Brazil has a

multi-party In political science, a multi-party system is a political system where more than two meaningfully-distinct political parties regularly run for office and win elections. Multi-party systems tend to be more common in countries using proportional r ...

system, with such numerous

parties A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature ...

that often no one party has a chance of gaining power alone, and so they must work with each other to form

coalition government A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an ...

Latest election

Presidential election

Parliamentary election

Chamber of Deputies

Federal Senate

Schedule

Election

Inauguration

Electoral systems

A presidential candidate in Brazil needs to gain fifty per cent plus one of votes to be named as winner. A second-round runoff is mandated if no candidate receives fifty per cent plus one of votes. Deputies are elected to the Chamber of Deputies using a form of

party-list proportional representation Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a system of proportional representation based on preregistered Political party, political parties, with each party being Apportionment (politics), allocated a certain number of seats Apportionm ...

known as the

open list Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a Political party, party's candidates are elected. This is as opposed to closed list, in which party lists ...

. Seats are distributed in 27 multi-member constituencies based on the Federation Units (26 States and the Federal District), ranging from 8 to 70 seats. Seats are allocated through the

D'Hondt method The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is an apportionment method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in proportional representation among political parties. It belongs to ...

. Senators are elected to the Federal Senate with a plurality of the vote in a first-past-the-post system, which is not proportional. Three senators are elected for each

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

and for the

Federal District A federal district is a specific administrative division in one of various federations. These districts may be under the direct jurisdiction of a federation's national government, as in the case of federal territory (e.g., India, Malaysia), or the ...

. In lower levels of government, the state legislative assemblies and city councils are elected using an

system. Seats are allocated using a version of the

where only parties who receive at least V/n votes (where V is the total number of votes cast and n is the total number of seats to be filled) may win seats in the legislature. Voting in Brazil is compulsory for all literate citizens over 18 and under 70, and optional for citizens who are aged 16 and 17, older than 70 or illiterate. Brazil introduced compulsory voting into its Electoral Code in 1932 and lowered the voting age from 18 to 16 in the 1988 constitution. The 1988 constitution also granted voluntary suffrage to the illiterate citizens of Brazil.

Brazilian voting machines

Presidential elections by party

Election results 1982–2018

Brazilian legislative elections (Chamber of Deputies), 1982–2018 Source

Source

Referendums

Brazil has held three national referendums in its history. In the first, held on January 6, 1963, the people voted for the re-establishment of the presidential system of government (82% of valid ballots), which had been modified by a constitutional amendment in 1961. A second referendum, as ordered by the Federal Constitution of 1988, was held on April 21, 1993, when the voters voted for a republican form of government and reaffirmed the presidential system. A third national referendum, on the Referendum concerning the prohibition of the sale of firearms and ammunition, prohibition of the commerce of personal firearms and ammunition, was held on October 23, 2005. The ban proposal was rejected by 64% of the electorate.

Notes

References

External links

Adam Carr's Election Archive
( Portuguese) Courtesy of the Brazilian Superior Electoral Court website. (

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required)
Brief history of electronic voting in Brazil

Brazil: The Perfect Electoral Crime (II)
(Security analysis of the Brazilian voting machines by James Burk, Oct. 21, 2006)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elections In Brazil Government of Brazil