On October 2, millions of Brazilians will go to the polls to elect their representatives at the state and federal levels. There will be five votes: for state/district deputy, federal deputy, senator, governor and president of the republic. The TSE (Superior Electoral Court) emphasizes that although the method of voting is the same, the method of counting votes is different. This is because there are two different systems, majority and proportional.

You can only vote for deputies with the signature of the party – Photo: Bruno Collaso/Agência AL/ND

In the majoritarian system, the calculation is simple: the one with the most votes wins. According to this system, governors, senators and the president of the republic will be elected. For the positions of governor and president, a candidate will be elected only in the first round, which ends the competition, if he receives more votes than the sum of all candidates (50% + 1 valid vote).

In the proportional system that applies to federal, state, and district positions, it may be that the person with the most votes is not necessarily elected. In this system, the electoral vote goes to the party, since the proposal is that the party has more power than the candidate himself. Here the mandate belongs to the party.

And why then does each candidate have a number and can receive votes individually? This is because the seats won by a party are occupied by the candidates who received the most votes within that party. But the number of seats allocated to each candidate in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Legislative Chambers will be determined by the total number of votes received by the party. That is, the number of seats in a party will be proportional to the number of votes it receives.

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The proportional system allows voters to vote only for the legend without allocating their vote to any particular candidate. For state/district and federal seats, he can vote this way by entering only the first two digits pertaining to the party in the ballot box and confirming the green button. Thus, the vote will be counted for the party and included in the score by which the candidates from that party with the highest number of votes will be elected.