Ballot boxes begin to be distributed at polling stations this Friday

Holding elections for mayor and councilor in all 497 municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul requires a logistical operation that involves different stages and has the electronic ballot box as its central “character”.
This Friday (4), around 30 thousand electronic voting machines which will be used on Sunday (6) will begin to be distributed to the 173 electoral zones throughout RS. Completion is expected on Saturday afternoon.

The equipment comes from around 140 different warehouses, next to electoral offices, and transportation is carried out by an outsourced company, hired by TRE-RS. In Porto Alegre, they start leaving the TRE depot at 7am this Friday.

THE loading ballot boxes with software and other necessary data took place from September 19th to 27th in all electoral zones in the state. For the election in Porto Alegre, 3,300 ballot boxes were loaded at the location where the equipment is stored, in Canoas. In the week before the election, an inspection was also carried out on all prepared ballot boxes to check their functioning and compliance.

It is only after this that the logistics of distributing electronic voting machines to the respective polling places and polling stations begin, normally carried out on the Friday and Saturday before the election. According to the Electoral Court, this dynamic varies depending on the needs and characteristics of each electoral zone. In more distant or difficult-to-access locations, ballot boxes can be transported by helicopters, planes and boats, such as in the North of the country.

Across Brazil, voters’ votes are “deposited” in around 571,000 electronic voting machines. Of these, 220 thousand were manufactured last year and debut this Sunday: it is the UE2022 model, which replaces the 2011 model ballot boxes. In this year’s election, models from the years 2013, 2015 and 2020 will also be in operation. They are designed to have a useful life of 10 years, or six consecutive elections.

According to the Electoral Court, the new equipment has improvements in processing capacity – they are 18 times faster than the 2015 model. These characteristics are also present in the 2020 model voting machines, which debuted in the last general elections.

This year, all equipment will also have a accessibility feature for visually impaired voters: a synthesized voice, called “Letícia”, to guide blind or visually impaired voters. To use the resource, the voter will receive headphones from the poll workers, to guarantee the secrecy of the vote. The TSE’s projection is that, in 2024, there will be more than 1.4 million voters with some disability.

Brazil has adopted electronic voting machines since 1996. The first model, manufactured entirely nationally, was the UE96, developed by the TSE in the early 1990s. Since then, the equipment has undergone regular software and hardware improvements, resulting in the launch of new models.

One of the initiatives that helps to prove the authenticity of ballot boxes and electronic voting is the Parallel Votingin which the equipment undergoes integrity and integrity tests with biometrics, and authenticity. will be 35 electronic voting machines chosen at randomby recommendation from political parties and inspection entities, or by lottery, to be audited. This choice will take place on Saturday morning (5).

In the first round of elections, on Sunday (6), the tests will take place at PUCRSin the lobby of Building 30 and in room 807, of building 50 (with biometrics).

THE integrity test simulates a vote with official candidates in electronic ballot boxes, and with paper ballots filled in by people from civil society. The ballot votes are typed into a support system and also into the electronic voting machine so that, at the end of the vote, the results can be compared. The entire procedure is filmed and monitored by external auditors.

Node integrity test with biometricsafter voting at their respective polling stations, voters accept the invitation and enable the electronic ballot box for the same procedures as the traditional test.

Already the authenticity test of electoral systems occurs by verifying the authenticity (digital signatures) and integrity (digital summaries) of the programs installed in the electronic voting machines at the locations themselves, before voting begins.