Electronic Voting In Brazil

Great article in the Boston Review about how electronic voting has helped combat vote fraud and disenfranchisement in Brazil:

"Between 1994 and 2002, the blank and invalid vote rate in national legislative elections dropped by 34 percentage points. Traditionally, observers attributed the high rate of invalid and blank votes to either dissatisfaction or disinterest in the political system, but the switch to electronic voting revealed that the paper ballot had been effectively disenfranchising Brazil’s poorest and least educated.

Electronic voting also sharply reduced incumbents’ ability to use electoral fraud to hang on to power. Incumbent parties, especially those in states long governed by political machines that emerged during the era of military rule, suffered major electoral losses. In several states in the poorer Northeast, voters witnessed real electoral competition for the first time in decades. Electronic voting isn’t solely responsible for these shifts, but it undoubtedly contributed to the fall of local oligarchs."

Very interesting short read! Check out the whole thing here.