Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a vocal critic Donald Trump, was reelected Sunday in a result that provides relief to critics of widening U.S. influence in Latin America.

With 100% of the vote counted, Brazil’s electoral court announced that the soon to be 81-year-old Lula had a lead of nearly 4.4 million votes over opponent Flávio Bolsonaro, giving him 51.8% of the total vote. Bolsonaro quickly refused to concede defeat and asked for the election results to be annulled after an evening of chaos at some polling places that followed a last-minute decision to extend voting by two hours.

Bolsonaro is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, whom Lula defeated to take the presidency in 2022.

Lula’s triumph bucks a regional trend of victories for right-of-center presidential candidates allied with Trump. It also means Latin America’s largest economy, with a GDP of $2.6 trillion per year, will likely continue defying Trump’s demands, despite the pressure of increased tariffs.

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[–] 8 points 2 days ago (4 children)

81 year old? Can't a generation just fucking die already?

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  • [–] 6 points 2 days ago

    I agree but still better than a Trump aligned person winning. Anyone in that pool is like voting for the end times. Basically authoritarian types, anything must be better than them, even an old dude.Ill add that I know almost nothing except who Trump wanted to win and they're bitching about results, the Trump way, oh also think the loser vamoosed recently, to the well known sanctuary of the United States. Oh good job we know how much they enjoy immigrants.....he has money? Oh pardon my faux pas.

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    [–] 214 points 4 days ago (13 children)

    Bolsonaro quickly refused to concede defeat and asked for the election results to be annulled

    What a little bitch.

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    [–] 165 points 4 days ago (38 children)

    Why are these little fascists always sore loosers?

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  • [–] 138 points 4 days ago (13 children)

    When you're against democracy, it would be weird to respect the democratic process. Fascists will always try to circumvent the rules as long as they're not in their favour, simply because fascists don't respect anyone but themselves.

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    [–] 61 points 3 days ago (9 children)

    You Americans better fucking vote like the Brazilians. Congrats Lula and carry on exporting and filling the massive holes the MAGA fucknuts opened for you.

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  • [–] 32 points 3 days ago* (6 children)

    Unfortunately the majority of deputies and senators are from Bolsonaro's party. Lula's win was a huge victory, but we still have a lot to fight for here in Brazil.

    The good thing is that Lula's party learned how to comunicate through social media, this helped him TREMENDOUSLY in his victory.

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  • [–] 20 points 3 days ago* (4 children)

    Good things democrats are running ads throwing trans people into the meat grinder for no reason. When they don’t even have to talk about trans people when they should be talking about the fact that Donald Trump has raped children and has ducked the ENTIRE economy. But Dems are going to do there best to try and shit brain themselves out of a sure fire victory.

    Edit: Also congratulations to Brazil from an embattled American.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago*

    more like the people took it to their own hands, came and showed it to him on a silver platter. lula's campaign was slow and cold until that.

    things look up if that willingness to fight for the country continues. after both a historic election and the end of the 6x1, i figure there's great potential hiding there.

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    [–] 2 points 2 days ago

    A couple of things to understand about Brazilian elections:

    • Voting is mandatory for all citizens aged 18-70, though failing to vote nets you a 4 BRL fine (less than a dollar)^[I understand people who would rather have it be non mandatory, but think about a criminal group ensuring only "their people" go out to vote. With optional voting, it gets easier for them to ensure victory. This would be a real situation in many cities in Brazil, where said criminal groups already do everything in their power to ensure "their guys" get elected.]
    • Every Brazilian citizen has an ID with photo (I've only recently learned that USA doesn't have something like a nationwide ID);
    • Election happens on a sunday and people who have to work on said day can ask to leave for 2 hours in order to vote;
    • Voting is standardized and organized at a federal level, even for municipal voting. The electoral tribunals exist solely for dealing with elections;
    • The majority of funds spent on campaigns come from the electoral fund, which is distributed to parties according to how many elected deputies, senators and governors they have (a great way to ensure big parties stay rich and well funded). Up until 2014, corporations could still donate to campaigns. After that, only citizens may donate and only up to 10% of their earnings.
    • The electronic urns are audited before and after elections^[This isn't a "we self audited ourselves" situation, in case you're wondering. Universities, Federal Police, Army and several other entities, public and private, can take part in the audit], they are completely offline and save votes to an internal disk. Since their inception, despite many claims, no fault or fraud has ever been found on the hardware or software. Even fucking bozo and his flunkies couldn't find any security breach back in 2022, while he was in power.
    • With how urns are distributed, it's easy to account if the total amount of registered votes is equal to the amount of voters that showed up. This first verification is done once voting time is over by the 4 poll workers that care for each urn/section.
    • Voters have to do both ID and biometric verification (fingerprint) before voting
    • No cell phones or kids go in the booth with you (take a wild guess why "no kids")
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  • [–] 72 points 3 days ago (8 children)

    Why is it always the right wingers that are the worst losers?

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  • [–] 47 points 3 days ago (3 children)

    Right wing philosophy boils down to "obey me or else".

    The origin of the words left and right in a political context comes from the French Revolution. Specifically from the events of the Estates General, and the writing of the failed constitution of 1789.

    The first vote, "Should the Monarch have an absolute veto over laws passed?" was determined by seating. Those in favor (the nobility and clergy from the richer areas) sat to the right of the speaker's podium, those opposed (people who wanted democracy, which included the some of the country nobles, country clergy, and the near entirety of the third estate) sat to the left.

    This pattern repeated on most questions, those who supported monarchy sat to the right, democracy to the left. The newspapers, which were recently completely freed of censorship, started using left and right as shorthand for the two sides.

    The philosophers then stepped in. Tomas Paine and Edmund Burke for two English language examples. Paine actually traveled to France and served in the legislature, despite not speaking French. Edmund Burke stayed in England and wrote about how the masses needed to be controlled by their betters, who should be selected not by birth, but by wealth. Burke was not a noble, but he was rich.

    Edmund Burke is the father of Conservatism. He was somewhat explicit that the thing he wanted to conserve, was power over others. Later writers have obfuscated things a bit, but if you look, the message is the same.

    So, when a right-winger loses, it's someone who really wants unchecked control over others being told to fuck off.

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    [–] 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (24 children)

    Electronic voting is such a liability for exactly this reason, it gives bad actors plausible doubt to throw on an election result.

    Pen/pencil and paper. Much more secure.

    Edit: to newer commenters. Please watch these excellent videos.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs

    And no, I am not supporting the Nazis. I'm saying the whole reason electronic voting is stupid is because it makes it easier for them to plausibly claim the vote was rigged. Because it is easier than with properly conducted paper voting.

    And that just because previous elections in Brazil conducted with paper voting were less secure, isn't an argument for electronic voting.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

    this was literally the narrative to try and make them less secure by the bolsonaros when they were in power. the brazilian voting machine is actually state of the art and they know it.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 day ago (4 children)

    The way to make it secure is to just use pencil/pen and paper and manually count. I really don't know why people cling to electronic voting.

    Works just fine in multiple countries, including here in Australia.

    (inb4 Brazil is way bigger than Australia. Yeah, so per capita they have more people to count votes...)

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago* (3 children)

    listen though: the voting machines are already secure.

    paper can be messed with. they have to be manually counted by people every time. that's why the literal nazis in brazil wanted to revert to paper.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    No please you listen

    listen though: the voting machines are already secure

    Reliably verifying this is a near impossibility.

    Tom Scott lays it out well in these videos:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs

    paper can be messed with. they have to be manually counted by people every time. that's why the literal nazis in brazil wanted to revert to paper.

    They want to revert to paper without any of the procedural steps needed to make it secure. You are absolutely conflating the fact that they want paper voting (so they can cheat) with how proper secure paper voting actually works.

    Yes, they need to be manually counted. This works incredibly well where I'm from (Australia), and other countries.

    You need the votes to be counted, by hand, in the presence of many people, and with invigilators from all parties/candidates making sure no one is cheating.

    We even have preferential voting, which is even more laborious, and yet we still do it.

    With such a set up you'd have to have a conspiracy of literally thousands of people in order to affect the vote. And if people are just letting a vote be rigged if it's an open secret, well the only solution to that is mass action and you have far greater societal issues. All election systems rely on people fighting to keep it fair.

    Sorry, but voting machines are a band aid that do not make elections secure, and give people a false sense of security, while also allowing bad actors to throw doubt over results (because of aforementioned impossibility of verification).

    Like, sorry. I'm glad Lula won, but electronic voting is still shit.

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  • [–] 1 point 20 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 child)

    stop being stubborn when the facts point elsewhere.

    paper votes are part of their strategy to manipulate elections by stealing ballots and more. paper is much easier to fuck with than encrypted electronics.

    you are literally echoing the nazi narrative for weakening brazilian elections.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 hours ago

    stop being stubborn when the facts point elsewhere.

    How?

    paper votes are part of their strategy to manipulate elections by stealing ballots and more. paper is much easier to fuck with than encrypted electronics.

    No, it isn't easier to fuck with. It can be fucked with easily if you don't put the necessary protections in place to stop it. Which from what I'm being told is what was happening in Brazil.

    I'm pointing out why electronic voting is stupid precisely because it gives them something to point at. This is precisely why it's so important to not have electronic voting. We wouldn't be having this conversation if the election were beyond reproach (which is the case in countries like Australia).

    You're clinging on to electronic voting because your side won, and that voting securitu was even worse before, and I'm very happy Lula did win, but it doesn't stop the fact that elections are less secure if you do them with electronic voting.

    Seriously, go watch those videos, they lay it out much better than me.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    There was a saying in Brazil, up to the 90s, that "elections are won in the counting" - fraud was rampant, especially at municipal/state level and the electronic urns got rid of that.

    Paper can only be considered more secure if you have special paper and special printing like money bills, otherwise they can be falsified much more easily.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 day ago* (2 children)

    There was a saying in Brazil, up to the 90s, that "elections are won in the counting" - fraud was rampant, especially at municipal/state level and the electronic urns got rid of that.

    Paper can only be considered more secure if you have special paper and special printing like money bills, otherwise they can be falsified much more easily.

    Skill issue.

    (Edit: realising this may be received by non-first-language English speakers, it's a meme. I'm not actually implying people in Brazil don't have skill haha. Just that it's definitely possible to have secure physical ballot elections, and just because it wasn't in Brazil, doesn't mean voting machines are better)

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pFD5npXRYi8

    Paper is more secure, but only if you pair it with procedural mitigations against bad actors.

    For example, one thing we do in Australia is having representatives from all parties invigilate the vote counting to ensure it's correct.

    Just because it was worse in Brazil before, isn't an argument for electronic voting.

    Compromising a machine is much more likely than creating a conspiracy of hundreds if not thousands of people that would be required to steal a paper and pencil election in Australia.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago* (1 child)

    Compromising a machine is much more likely

    You're free to point how to compromise a significant enough number of machines that never connect to the internet and whose firmware/code is audited by several parties and institutions before being compiled and installed on them, some time before elections proper and also after the elections

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  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    Lost me on that. Pen and paper aren't at all more secure than Brazilian voting machines.

    They are essentially low spec linux computers without ports, internet acess or easy way in. The only thing they do it store results and print them on paper.

    Even if one manages to crack open a machine and sneak something inside, there is security to prevent it to pass as genuine

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    [–] 43 points 4 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 child)

    « This is unacceptable, we the far right cheated but not enough… We should cancel the election results so I could win with my us oligarchs friends and pardon my corrupt father. “ said bolsonaro.

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    [–] 20 points 3 days ago (1 child)

    Here's a playbook of the Rights response to this.

    • Say he cheated. Over and over and over and over again.
    • Be completely unwilling to accept actual evidence that proves there was no cheating.
    • Act outraged and suggest or imply that physical violence is an acceptable response.
    • Never ever, ever admit you were and are wrong.
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    [–] 32 points 4 days ago

    Brazil and Serbia. Good on them. America, you're up. I would include Israel but even the best possible government there fucking sucks balls.

    if only we got some of this in Hong Kong....

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