This Sunday’s vote (30) for president and governors, unlike previous elections, was unified across the country and will only follow Brasília time, no longer taking into account time zone differences.
The decision for the unification was taken by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), in December 2021, on the grounds that, in this way, it will be possible to start the calculation and dissemination of results soon after the end of the voting, without the need to wait for the states with the latest time zone.
With the decision, next Sunday all polling stations in the country will be open from 8 am to 5 pm Brasília time. Only voters who are already in line will be able to vote after 17:00 GMT.
Voting schedule according to the TSE – Art / EBC
In states that follow a different time zone than Brasília, the local polling station opening time will be adequate. This is the case in Rondônia, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Roraima and part of Amazonas, where voting will take place from 7 am to 4 pm, local time.
In Acre and in some polling stations in Amazonas, the polls will open and close two hours in advance. In this case, voting will take place from 6 am to 3 pm. On the island of Fernando de Noronha, where the time zone is one hour ahead of Brasília, the polls must be open from 9 am to 6 pm.
overseas voting
The unified voting time, however, does not apply to voting abroad, which will continue to take place from 8 am to 5 pm, according to each country’s local time.
In this case, due to the time zone, elections abroad will start at 8 pm on October 30 (Brasilia time) in Wellington, capital of New Zealand, and will end in cities in the western United States. Inside or outside Brazil, voting time will be the same, nine hours in total.
Citizens who have an electoral domicile outside the country can only vote for President of the Republic. Voting abroad is organized by the Regional Electoral Court of the Federal District (TRE-DF), with the support of the Brazilian consular network in each country.
In the 2022 elections, more than 697,000 people are eligible to vote in other countries, a number that represents an increase of 39.21% compared to 2018.
The places that concentrate the largest number of Brazilians eligible to vote abroad are Lisbon, Miami and Boston, with 45,273, 20,189 and 37,159 registered voters, respectively. The countries with the highest number of Brazilian voters are the United States, Japan and Portugal, in that order.
Disclosure
The TSE forecast is that the disclosure of results will begin as soon as the voting is closed. The numbers can be followed, for example, through the Results mobile app, available in Android and iOS stores. The Electoral Justice also created a web page specifically for this purpose.
