Flávio Bolsonaro wins first round, Lula forces runoff in Brazil

Flávio Bolsonaro wins the first round and the electronic count raises suspicions

Flávio Bolsonaro won the first round of the Brazilian presidential election with more than 47% of the vote and will face Lula da Silva in the runoff on October 25. The figure was released by the La Gaceta account along with the rest of the day's results, and the patriotic victory narrative was immediately built on top of it. According to another of the messages circulating, the gap with Lula stood at 1.87 points. A narrow margin for a candidate who claims the most recognizable surname of the Brazilian right.

The result closed nothing. It peine things. And what peine, above all, was the electoral system's Pandora's box.

The electronic count, under suspicion

The most repeated criticism is not aimed at the votes, but at the machine that counts them. Some claim that in the states where Flávio's Liberal Party swept the congressional and Senate races, the presidential ballot behaved strikingly differently and favored Lula. The conclusion drawn is that whoever counts the votes is whoever can skew them.

There is a pattern described in detail: the count advances, pauses at a certain hour, and when it resumes the conservative candidate has lost what he had gained. That script, the argument goes, was already seen in 2022 and would have repeated itself in this first round. The suspicion is not new; what is new is that it is now being raised with a candidate named Bolsonaro in the lead.

It is worth separating the fact from the diagnosis. That Brazil's electronic count generates distrust among part of the electorate is an observable fact. That this distrust amounts to proven fraud is another matter, and so far no one has presented anything more than correlations and suspicions.

The 50% counted that changed everything

In the middle of the night came the figure that upset everything: with 50% of ballots counted, Lula stood at 50.15% against Flávio's 49.85%. A technical tie of three tenths that contradicted the initial lead. That is exactly the kind of swing that fuels the pause-and-adjust theory.

The problem is that a percentage counted is not a result. It is an intermediate snapshot. And in systems with counting by region, the order in which ballots come in moves the needle without anyone touching anything. Explaining it that way does not convince those who already distrust the system, but it is the difference between a hint and proof.

Endorsements, polls and a judge takes the stage

The runoff campaign got off to a lively start. Augusto Cury, the third most-voted candidate, announced his support for Flávio. A poll put him six points ahead of Lula in the second round. And Judge Alexandre de Sarracena issued an arrest warrant against Eduardo, the candidate's brother, in what was read as a reaction to the result.

Flávio, meanwhile, promises the government "more incredible than any you have seen in your lives" and defends his father's role. He also proposes a constitutional change to eliminate presidential re-election. Lula, for his part, announces that he will bring the Meta platform before the courts in the middle of the campaign.

The October 25 runoff will decide who governs. It will not decide, however, whether the electronic count deserves the trust demanded of it. That dispute will remain open no matter what happens at the ballot box.