Next, We Could Learn a Lot About Voting From Brazil

How a digital system does — and doesn’t — change the politics of polarization

It’s a country whose prior presidential election was characterized by deep polarization. The most recent president was chosen by a razor-thin margin. The loser maintained that the election was fraudulent. And several months after the election, a group of the loser’s supporters staged a demonstration, and broke into several of the country’s government buildings.

Yes, it’s America. But it’s also Brazil.

So why should the U.S. learn about how to vote from the Land of the Holy Cross?

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to lecture at an event in Belém (short for Bethlehem), a Brazilian metropolitan area of over 2 million people at the edge of an Amazon region that is preparing to host the COP30 climate summit in 2025. The conference where I spoke on the future of work and society brought together government leaders involved in the country’s system of democracy, providing a fascinating lens on a voting process the U.S. can only envy.

I learned from my hosts that a variety of factors underpin the country’s modern approach to voting.

• Every citizen has an identity card (cédula de identidade), with a unique ID number (RG, or Registro General). This isn’t a source of (much) controversy, because it allows people to have access to a range of government services. Starting last year, the RG is now each citizen’s CPF number (Cadastro de Pessoas Físicas, or Natural Person’s Register), essentially like the U.S. social security number, but given to everyone when they’re born. And people identify themselves using biometrics.

• Voting is done on a single Sunday, a national holiday. Every state in Brazil uses the same system, with no leeway to create alternative approaches for voting.

• Voting is considered a responsibility, not an optional right, a requirement baked into the country’s 1932 constitution. If you’re between the ages of 18 and 70 and you don’t vote, you can lose many of your rights, such as the ability to renew a passport.

• All voting is done digitally. The votes from polling locations are all uploaded throughout the day by satellite, ensuring that the process is secure. Votes are automatically aggregated, and the full results of national elections are known within a few hours after polls close.

• Brazilian national elections are determined by a simple plurality. The candidate receiving over half the votes is elected. End of story.

You Can’t Get Elected Like That Here

Although supporters of the losing Brazilian presidential candidate in 2020 maintained that the vote was fraudulent, the country’s digital voting system offered little factual support. Yet though America’s 2020 election was verified by government agencies as the most secure in its history, there are several points where the country’s wide-ranging rule implementation and frequent reliance on human decision-making makes it ripe for claims of potential errors.

For example, ballots in the U.S. require a handwritten signature — possibly the least secure identity verification process known to humans. The first known example of the use of a signature for identity dates back 5,000 years ago, to a Sumerian clay tablet with a handwritten signature of a city administrator. The process hasn’t gotten any more secure in five millennia: Even the most practiced signer can have such variations in their signature, it’s easy to question any comparison. (My signature on a mail-in ballot was rejected in a pandemic-era election in San Francisco, requiring an onerous in-person visit with three forms of identification.) And it takes so little practice to copy most signatures, what teenager isn’t tempted to sign for a parent on a get-out-of-school note? (Okay, I might have done that in high school once or twice.)

Also, because the U.S. is a democratic republic, the process of selecting state electors, and giving each state the ability to decide how those electors are chosen, means that the actual number of citizen votes does not determine an election.?

We also confuse the difference between freedom, rights, and responsibilities. In a recent oped for the New York Times (“Why I Won’t Vote”) Matthew Walther, editor of the Catholic literary journal the Lamp, frames voting as a right, but not a responsibility. His reasoning is quite similar to anyone rationalizing why they drive a gas-guzzling car or think nothing of the carbon cost of flying: I’m one person, my decision alone doesn’t matter.

But if voting is a fundamental underpinning of a democracy, why is it a right, but not a responsibility?

The issue is not whether a single vote will determine an election, or if it will give you the right (but not the responsibility) to complain about who’s elected. You don’t litter, and you don’t run red lights — not (just) because of the penalties, but because you function as a citizen contributing to your community, with values based not just in the rule of law, but in the golden rule. Vote for the rights of others, as they vote for your rights.

Oil or Glue?

I suggested to the government leaders in Belém that laws essentially have two functions: Friction or lubricant, oil or glue. A regulation either says to do more (oil) or less (glue) of some activity. But many countries’ legal systems, with their thousands of laws and regulations, are essentially layer after layer of oil and glue, to the point where many people and companies can’t easily determine what they should or shouldn’t do.

Think of a voting system as the glue that holds together a democracy.?

The reason the glue in the U.S. system is cracking is that the country uses a 237-year old voting process designed to create a power counterbalance when the country had less than four million people — and most of the financial power was in the agricultural South. The challenge today is finding a pathway to a 21st-century U.S. system that has fairness baked into every aspect. That would require a variety of steps, each with powerful political winds blowing against them:

• Ubiquitous government-issued ID. While virtually every legal U.S. citizen has a social security number, distrust in the federal government makes it politically unlikely that any mandatory digital ID will be adopted any time soon. (The new federally-mandated digital driver’s licenses aren’t required, unless you want to travel on a plane between states.)?
• Secure voting infrastructure. 100% digital. Uploaded through satellites. Yet the U.S. is going exactly the opposite direction, with many states falling back into systems requiring paper ballots.
• A voting holiday. Every state can have its own rules for when, where, and how people vote. Not having a consistent approach ensures that certain populations — such as the elderly, and those who aren’t native English speakers — will always be disadvantaged.
• Mandatory voting. For a country that prizes its global role as a long-running democratic republic, the U.S. guarantees personal freedom to a degree that actually imperils democracy. The fewer people who vote, the more leaders are chosen by a frighteningly-small percentage of voters.

Still, seeing the inspiration of a country like Brazil should give us hope that all of these layers of glue might be possible in America.

-gB Gary A. Bolles

Thanks to my great friend Ademir Piccoli for introducing me to so many inspiring judges, government leaders, and innovators in the legaltech arena. Gledson Pompeu Renan Hannouche Dante Freitas, MsC Eduardo Ibrahim Felipe Brito Aroldo Cedraz Pedro Henrique Sotto-Mayor

I’m the author of The Next Rules of Work: The mindset, skillset, and toolset to lead your organization through uncertainty. I've served as the adjunct Chair for the Future of Work for Singularity University. I have over 1.5 million learners for my courses on LinkedIn Learning. I'm a partner in the consulting firm Charrette LLC. I'm a senior advisor to aca.so, building the Community Operating System for Learning Organizations. I helped to catalyze Next CoLabs, a global thinktank of AI creatives, and I'm a co-founder of eParachute.com. I'm an original founder of SoCap Global, and the former editorial director of 6 tech magazines. Learn more at gbolles.com