>ANSA-SHEET/ Everything is ready in Brazil for the run-off, 159 million voting

Voting takes place tomorrow in Brazil for the presidential run-off between outgoing president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and senator Flavio Bolsonaro. In the first round, the right-wing exponent, son of the former head of state Jair, obtained 47.03% of valid votes, against 45.16% for the progressive leader, equal to a difference of around 2.2 million preferences.

There are 158.7 million voters called to the polls to choose the head of state for the next four years. The polls will be open from 8am to 5pm, Brasilia time, and from 12pm to 9pm in Italy. The counting will begin immediately after closing and the first data will be released from 5pm to 9pm in Italy. The law prohibits the release of exit poll results until the polls close. Given the electronic ballot boxes and the fact that voting is only for the presidency at the national level and for governors in five states and the federal district, the first official data, useful to outline a trend, will arrive at state data collection centers and will then be transmitted to Brasilia within a few minutes.

However, with a challenge expected at the wire, in light of the draw indicated by the most authoritative polls, it may be necessary to wait for the results of the last sections.

To find out the outcome, we will therefore have to wait for the official counting data. In 2022, Lula was mathematically declared elected at 7.56 pm local time (11.56 pm in Italy), almost three hours after the polls closed. The undecided voters and voters who did not show up in the first round will also make the vote decisive: there were 33.47 million abstentions, equal to 21.08% of those entitled to vote. The choices of those who had voted for the other candidates, mostly right-wing, who had received a total of around 9.3 million votes, will also have an impact.