Cecilia Machado: The electronic voting machine and the vote of the poorest

This column was written together with Thomas Fujiwara, professor at Princeton University and responsible for the study on the effects of the introduction of electronic voting machines in Brazil.

The text contributes to the campaign #science in the elections, and brings reflections on how science should participate in the debate of proposals in favor of Brazil.

A little less than 80 years ago, it was not uncommon to see the view that purging illiterate votes from the electorate would be not only necessary but also healthy for the moralization of elections in the country. In the words of Tenório Cavalcanti, UDN federal deputy for Rio de Janeiro: “If we pass this law, we will at least improve the quality of the Brazilian electorate.”

Tenório talks about the introduction of paper ballots in the 1956 elections. The deputy was certainly a man with an aggressive and peculiar political style, whose life yielded the classic film “The man in the black cape”.

But Tenório’s view was also shared by many other influential people at the time, such as the jurist Edgar Costa, president of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court), for whom “voting demands a minimum of reflection and discernment”, and among senators, such as Fernandes Távora, for which the paper ballot “prevents illiterates from voting”.

Filling out a paper ballot may seem like a trivial task, but if we consider that this voting instrument penalizes writing errors in a largely illiterate population, the use of paper ballots reduces the political participation of those who cannot read and write (Gingerich , 2019).

It was only in 1996 that the voting system began to take place through the electronic ballot box, being initially adopted in larger municipalities, and later throughout the country.

Its user-friendly interface requires voters to just type their candidates’ numbers, making it easier to vote by guiding the process step by step, adding visuals (such as a photo of the candidate), using numbers (instead of letters) whenever possible and when indicating flaws at the time of voting (such as whether the number released is valid or not).

All in all, the introduction of the electronic voting machine has reduced a major obstacle to the political participation of the less educated.

In a 2015 study, Thomas Fujiwara corroborates this hypothesis and establishes a cause and effect relationship between the adoption of electronic voting machines and the electoral emancipation of the population.

The introduction of the electronic voting machine increased the number of valid votes (votes that are not null or blank) in state deputy elections by ten percentage points (from 79% to 89%). This means that part of the electorate only started to have their vote actually counted with the electronic ballot box.

This increase in the representation of less educated voters in the “real” vote had effects on the composition of public spending: state governments redirected expenditures to public health, increasing them by 34% in the period from 1999 to 2006.

In addition, these expenditures had tangible effects on the health of families, increasing the number of visits that pregnant women made with health professionals and decreasing the number of low birth weight babies (less than 2.5 kg).

These effects were concentrated in mothers with incomplete primary education, without the mothers with more education being affected. This suggests that public policies change with the votes of the least educated, improving their living conditions.

These results are not surprising. Different citizens have different priorities in relation to public policies. Voters with less education value public health more than those with higher education, who are better able to use the private system.

The more valid votes come from the less educated, the more the political system responds by meeting their demands. This occurs either because new politicians representing this population are more likely to be elected, or because incumbent politicians interested in being reelected “pay more attention” to their demands.

Due to this logic, several social scientists argue that the poor quality of public services is caused by the low political representation of the marginalized populations that benefit most from them.

The research described here confirms this view and shows that incremental improvements in the electoral process, such as removing mundane obstacles to political participation, or “greasing the wheels of democracy”, can have substantial effects on people’s quality of life.