RJ has 12.8 million voters; Women are the majority and the participation of those over 70 years old is growing

Rio de Janeiro has 12,857,000 eligible voters for the 2026 elections, an increase of 0.23% compared to 2022. The profile is mostly female and older.

Women represent 54% of the Rio de Janeiro electorate. While the number of young voters aged 16 and 17 fell by 45.27%, the group over 70 grew by 14.3%.

The registration of voters with disabilities grew to 141,418 people. Furthermore, 81.06% of the electorate already has biometrics registered, totaling 10,421,768 citizens.

The state of Rio de Janeiro reaches the 2026 general elections with 12,857,000 voters eligible to vote, an increase of 0.23% compared to the 2022 election — when 12,827,296 people were eligible. The state concentrates 8.15% of the national electorate and ranks as the 3rd largest electoral college in the country, behind only São Paulo and Minas Gerais.

Figures from the Regional Electoral Court of Rio de Janeiro (TRE-RJ) reveal an electorate that is predominantly female and increasingly older.

Women represent 54% of voters in Rio de Janeiro. In total, there are 6,946,339 female voters, against 5,902,909 men.

The capital has the largest absolute number of women eligible to vote, with 2,714,360 voters. Niterói is the municipality with the highest female proportion in the state, where women represent 55.59% of the electorate.

Among the 92 municipalities in Rio de Janeiro, only 2 have more men than women among their voters: Santa Maria Madalena, in the Mountain Region, where the male electorate corresponds to 50.16% of the total, and Duas Barras, also in the Mountain Region, with 50.10%.

The data also points to a change in the age profile of the electorate. The 45 to 49 age group is the largest in the state, with 1,204,628 people, equivalent to 9.37% of voters. Meanwhile, the number of young people aged 16 and 17, in which voting is optional, fell from 123,573 in 2022 to 67,628 in 2026, a reduction of 45.27%.

In the opposite direction, the participation of the elderly is growing. The number of voters over 70 years old increased by 14.3% in four years. There were 1,609,497 in 2022 and now there are 1,839,654. As with teenagers, voting for this age group is also optional.

The TRE-RJ survey also shows progress in identifying groups that have historically faced difficulties in inclusion in the electoral process. Currently, 3,388 voters use their social name on the Rio de Janeiro electoral register.

Despite this, the number represents a drop of 30.4% compared to the 2022 elections, when there were 4,868 registrations. The city of Rio has the largest number of people with a registered social name, with 1,553 voters, followed by Duque de Caxias, with 149.

Another relevant characteristic of the electorate is the presence of people with disabilities. According to the Electoral Court, 141,418 voters declared that they had some type of disability. The majority reported mobility difficulties, a group that brings together 57,600 people, equivalent to 37.11% of the total.

There were also 22,453 people who were blind or have low vision and 11,291 who were hearing impaired. Compared to 2022, there was a significant growth in this registration, which went from 84,822 to more than 141 thousand voters.

Biometrics is also increasingly present in the electoral process in Rio de Janeiro. Of the 12.8 million voters eligible to vote, 10,421,768 already have registered biometric data, which corresponds to 81.06% of the electorate.

TRE-RJ's expectation is to increase this percentage through the use of biometric data shared by Detran-RJ, an initiative that could increase the biometric identification rate to around 87% after the elections.

The largest electoral college in the state continues to be the city of Rio de Janeiro, with 4,950,429 voters. Next are São Gonçalo (653,494), Duque de Caxias (635,079), Nova Iguaçu (615,377) and Niterói (411,407). Together, these five municipalities concentrate more than half of the voters in the Metropolitan Region.