Next year’s elections in Brazil will be processed manually due to substantial cuts in public spending, it emerged yesterday. This is the first time elections will be carried out through paper-based means since 2000, when electronic voting machines were used to process all votes. E-voting in Brazil was first introduced in 1996 and rolled out gradually in the following years. Municipal elections will take place in October 2016. According to an official statement, more than R$428m ($109.6m) in resources will not be released to the Superior Electoral Court, which impacts the ability to buy the electronic voting devices and other required equipment. “The biggest impact [of the budget cuts] is around the purchasing of electronic voting equipment, as bidding and essential contracting is already underway and [to be concluded] by end of December, with committed spending estimated at R$200m ($51.2m)” the statement added.
While stating that the sudden announcement of the budget cuts will prevent the use of electronic voting next year, the Electoral Court added that the impossibility of buying the equipment will cause “irreversible and irreparable” damage to the electoral justice in Brazil as deadlines will not be met.
E-voting was introduced as a means to ensure secrecy and accuracy of the election process, as well as speed, as voting machines enables results to be processed in a matter of minutes within closing of the ballots. However, flaws found in the system opened up the possibility of fraud in the country’s general elections last year.
Full Article: Brazil cans e-voting due to recession | ZDNet.