Almost 1.8 million poll workers were summoned to attend the polling stations in the first round of the general elections this Sunday (2) and, in an eventual second round, on October 30th. Every electoral section has four polling officers, and each one has a specific function: president, 1st polling station, 2nd polling station and secretary. Each plays a role during the election.
The president of the section is responsible for organizing the work on the day, coordinating the distribution of activities to the other members of the board, maintaining order in the room, issuing the zerésima (document that proves that no vote was recorded in the memory of the ballot box), starting and ending voting, issuing ballot boxes, having contact with inspectors and arranging for the delivery of section materials to the electoral registry. To maintain the secrecy of the vote, the ballot box must be kept away from windows and cameras.
“This role is very important. The president of the electoral section is the highest authority within the section”, says the secretary of People Management (SGP) of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Thayanne Fonseca Pirangi Soares.
It is up to the 1st board member to take the place of the president, in case he needs to be absent at some point.
The 2nd polling station basically does everything the first one does: checks the names of voters, collects signatures in the voting book, delivers voting slips and controls the movement of people in the room.
The section secretary, in turn, organizes the queues and the entry and exit of voters from the rooms, checks that voters have the correct documentation to vote and distributes passwords.
Start of voting
On election day, it is also up to poll workers to organize the start and end of voting. From 8 am, the ballot box is enabled for voting, and the queue of voters must be organized, according to priority situations.
The poll worker checks if the voter has the necessary documentation to vote: official document with photo, which can be the e-Título, the identity card or driver’s license and the passport, among others.
After identification, the voter is entitled to vote. After hearing the sound of the electronic ballot box that marks the end of the process, the voter collects the documents and voting receipts from the poll workers, in addition to their electronic equipment, such as cell phones, which cannot be taken to the booth, so as not to compromise the vote secrecy.
Closing
At the time defined for the end of voting, that is, at 17:00 (Brasília time), the section secretary checks if there are still voters in the queue and distributes passwords from the last to the first. If there are no people in the queue, the chairman ends the vote.
The foreclosure process involves several steps. The first starts before the printing of the ballot box (BU), which informs the result of the vote in that polling station. If inspectors are present, they are invited to accompany the procedure. There are five routes in total. and all must be signed by those present.
A copy of the BU is posted on the door of the section to publicize the local result; the other remains with the president for a later conference with the data that will appear on the internet, on the TSE Portal – the QR Code printed on the BU, when scanned and decoded, shows the polling data of that electoral section. And the last copy will be given to a party representative, if present, another measure that demonstrates the transparency of the election and the credibility of the electronic voting machine.
Then, automatically, the urn prints the copy of the justification bulletin (BUJ) and the identification bulletin of the poll workers (BIM), asks for the removal of the result media (MR) and the sealing of the compartment, which is then turned off .
Another procedure is to reserve the result media, the zerésima, for sending to the electoral board. the minutes of the polling station, two copies from the BU, one copy from the BUJ and one from the BIM.
“The justification and identification forms for people with disabilities or reduced mobility, the voting book and other materials will follow the orientation of the electoral registry for submission. In any case of inconsistency, the electoral registry must be notified”, informs the TSE.
