Datafolha: 13% of absentees cite lack of interest as a reason for not voting in the 1st round

Abstention in the first round of this year's elections broke a record: 21.08%. There were more than 33 million people who stopped voting on the 4th. A new Datafolha survey released this Friday (9) brings reasons related to non-attendance.

According to the survey, among voters who declared that they had not gone to the polls last Sunday, 19% cited travel or not being in the city as the reason for their absence; health and illness emerged in the responses of 18%.

Furthermore, 13% cited lack of interest in the election, the candidates or lack of a candidate as the reason, while another 9% said they were working and 7% did not have documents.

A portion of 6% mentioned distance from the polling place, and 5%, other commitments. Queue and full polling place were cited by 4%, and age also by 4%. Other reasons account for 17%. They don't know 3%.

The response to the question about the reasons for abstention is spontaneous and multiple, that is, the options are not previously presented to the interviewees, and they may indicate more than one reason.

Datafolha interviewed 2,520 voters in 153 municipalities spread across Brazil. The interviews were carried out at points of population flow through a personal approach. The survey's general margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points. In the case of the question about abstention, the margin is 10 points.

The work, commissioned by Folha and TV Globo, is the first since the first round of elections. He is registered in the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) system under code BR-02949/2026.

Abstention is an important variable for the confrontation between Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) and Lula (PT). In the first stage, the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) registered 47.03% of the votes, compared to 45.16% for the candidate for re-election. As Folha showed, the non-attendance rate is one of the explanations used to support the senator's lead over the PT member.