Brazilian polling station officers want extra security

Polling workers in Bahia during the 2020 municipal elections. Photo: Joa Souza/Shutterstock

A survey released by Instituto Ideia revealed that 70 percent of the Brazilians who have been summoned to work as polling station officers in the October elections want the electoral authorities to provide more security this year.

President Jair Bolsonaro’s repeated attacks on the country’s voting system have heightened tensions ahead of the elections and stoked concerns that the vote may be marred by violence.

The Instituto Ideia interviewed a sample of 651 polling station officers; 30 percent of these said they feared being the target of attacks, verbal or physical, on the days of the election, while 22 percent who had previously worked as polling station officers reported having suffered problems while on the job.

The survey also reveals a lack of trust in the very electoral system that the polling station officers serve: 20 percent believe there will be fraud and 31 percent believe the election results will be challenged. Just over half (52 percent) say they trust the electronic voting machines, with 31 percent trusting them a little, and 13 percent saying they do not trust them at all.

Some 147 million Brazilians will vote to elect a new president and legislature in October. The electoral authorities estimate that nearly 2 million people, a large part of them volunteers, are needed to help man the polling stations across the country.