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Notes -
Time to check up on our Lusotropicalism enjoyers.
The Brazilian Presidential election ended yesterday, featuring a run-off between Lula da Silva and Flavio Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro, the son of jailed former President Jair Bolsonaro, had won the previous round. Prediction markets placed his odds of winning at roughly 80%.
But Lula ended up winning, and not without controversy.
Apparently, a Supreme Court justice, and a former personal attorney of Lula's, added two extra hours to the voting period in a last second decision. There have been claims that voting in Bolsonaro-friendly areas had already been finalized and could not been restarted. One person on X claimed "it's as if voting restarted, but only in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Baltimore". I am not sure how accurate this claim is.
Bolsonaro is not accepting the results of the election. There are calls for the election results to be annulled, especially if it turns out the extra voting period was decisive. The situation is perhaps mitigated by the fact that conservatives now control a large majority of the legislature and may be able to immediately impeach Lula and, more importantly, his judges.
Perhaps someone who understands the situation can weigh in. From my outsider's view it seems that, in Brazil, individual Supreme Court justices wield nearly unchecked power and can make last second Banana Republic type decisions like opening the polls for an extra two hours. Brazilian politics feel like American ones, just more so.
The Brazilian stock market is down by 25% overnight.
Context: Reuters reports that Brazil's Federal Highway Police conducted widespread roadblocks specifically targeting public busses in the (left leaning ) north-east of the country. After being explicitly ordered not to stop busses on voting day. The highway police is apparently obviously pro-Bolsonaro.
Several sources (as of yet only in Portuguese) also report irregularities with public transportation (~50% of busses being ordered to stay in their depots on voting day in - left leaning - Salvador and São Paulo), with the secretary of transportation in Salvador now having an order of arrest on him for his role in this instruction.. Public transport officials claim the busses were stickered with pro-Lula messages, and they just wanted to prevent being accused of illegally running political ads through the city...
But it seems like the the extended voting time was specifically ordered to compensate for perceived voter suppression. The courts also ordered all busses to be released from their depots, stickered or not.
Better scenario for dangers of adopting public transport, and abandoning cars, can hardly be imagined. In fact, were one claim it as possible con, he would be considered to have succumb to conspiratiorial thinking.
This is just corruption. Using cars would have protected you from this specific problem, but they would have tried to find another way to profile and delay voters instead.
Would it have been successful?
Cars are the most freedom-promoting mode of transportation we have (though not the most possible).
Only as long as the roads are maintained and unblocked. A corrupt government could institute road maintenance on the highways out of selected cities, ensuring everyone is pushed onto smaller roads with tighter speed limits thus causing mass congestion and delays on the way to the polls.
I'm kind of skeptical about this. Where I live (suburbs of the Northeastern US), most people live within a mile or two of a polling station. i.e. it's either within walking distance or a short drive on local streets. I would imagine that in more urban areas, most people are even closer to the polling station. And that in more rural areas, there's just not enough traffic density to cause much in the way of traffic delays.
I can imagine super rural areas in the US where blocking one highway could have a real impact on a small neighborhood. But I am pretty sure that the ratio of blockers to blocked votes would be too high to make it worthwhile.
If it is within walking distance, blocking busses would have equally little effect.
Agreed. The question is about situations where the polling station or other destination is a modest drive (or bus ride) away. With public transit, the centralized control arguably makes it easier to obstruct people. For example, the authorities could simply tell the bus drivers that they have a day off.
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Police roadblocks are capable of stopping cars, too.
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“Sorry man, the main highway all the people in this Bolsonaro neighborhood use is down for emergency maintenance.”
Okay, Chris Christie.
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I can’t read this without grinning. But seriously, should there be a national announcement on Election Day that runs the opposite?: “Attention! All barriers and roadblocks have been removed to get to your voting stations. Hope all goes well and you make it there alive! Godspeed, fellow countrymen.”
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