How campaigns will try to trick Brazilians into voting for the wrong candidate

Brazil introduced electronic voting machines in its electoral system as an experiment in the 1996 municipal elections. According to Giuseppe Janino, the Superior Electoral Court’s Director of Technology, the machine had to meet certain requirements related to both safety and user experience. “It had to prevent anyone from accessing its system, while being easy to use, thus allowing illiterate voters to use it,” he said.

And that’s how the design of the Brazilian voting machine was conceived. Instead of choosing a name and marking an ‘X’, voters would instead type a number, and the candidate’s face, name, and party would appear. If the correct info pops up, voters hit a large, green button marked “CONFIRM” to cast their ballot, like in the explanatory video released by electoral authorities in 2014: