Flavio Bolsonaro is refusing to concede defeat to incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who bested him by nearly 4.4 million votes, following a chaotic delay in poll closing times ordered by a Supreme Court justice.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a vocal critic Donald Trump, was reelected Sunday in a result that provides relief to critics of widening U.S. influence in Latin America.

With 100% of the vote counted, Brazil’s electoral court announced that the soon to be 81-year-old Lula had a lead of nearly 4.4 million votes over opponent Flávio Bolsonaro, giving him 51.8% of the total vote. Bolsonaro quickly refused to concede defeat and asked for the election results to be annulled after an evening of chaos at some polling places that followed a last-minute decision to extend voting by two hours.

Bolsonaro is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, whom Lula defeated to take the presidency in 2022.

Lula’s triumph bucks a regional trend of victories for right-of-center presidential candidates allied with Trump. It also means Latin America’s largest economy, with a GDP of $2.6 trillion per year, will likely continue defying Trump’s demands, despite the pressure of increased tariffs.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 day ago

    But it’s much less plausible when you have more secure voting systems.

    No lay voter has any idea of what constituents “secure” in a material sense.

    All you have are people insisting “my system is safe, your system is not”. And this thread is a perfect illustration.

    Hand marked paper ballots are notoriously prone to failure. Nothing about them is materially more secure than a printed ballot. And yet…

    This is easily solved by never having any portion of the vote counting and transport happen alone.

    It isn’t easily solved, as the number of venues and volume of votes leave ample opportunities for shenanigans (or, at least, alleged shenanigans).

    The Ohio Recount in 2004 is a classic example.

    • MisterFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      5 hours ago

      Hand marked paper ballots are notoriously prone to failure. Nothing about them is materially more secure than a printed ballot. And yet…

      There is something inherantly more secure about physical ballots. They exist in the physical world and need to be physically counted, and can’t be just erased by the flip of a bit.

      I can fully wipe a harddrive fairly trivially, I can’t fully erase a pencil mark without some serious chemicals, an iron and probably a bunch else.

      It isn’t easily solved, as the number of venues and volume of votes leave ample opportunities for shenanigans (or, at least, alleged shenanigans).

      The Ohio Recount in 2004 is a classic example.

      First of all, the USA in general has terrible voting practices. Second you’re right, no system can ever fully defend against people making shit up and getting voters to distrust an election, however:

      An average person can fully comprehend how a paper voting system is kept secure. An average person cannot do the same for electronic voting because inherantly it gets into software and hardware security.

      I really encourage you to watch those videos I sent, Tom Scott lays out the arguments very well.