The null vote

So the latest Datafolha poll released today shows that 18% of those polled plan on nullifying their vote for deputado (federal representative in congress). On one hand, I think this should be cause for alarm--in a place where the vote is compulsory, this is one way to resist the vote and it implies a lack of confidence in the system. On the other hand, the numbers are not nearly so high for president which indicates that people are specifically protesting against the deputados, most likely because of the two recent scandals (the mensalão and the sangessugas). The statistics--which certainly could change between now and election day--could therefore be read as a positive way of protesting corruption.

I am not opposed to a blank or null vote--I myself have been known to do it in certain elections when there is no candidate that suits me. Still, these numbers are interesting because I remember seeing election results from the late 70s where the "winner" for deputado or senate would have been the blank or null vote. At the time, this reflected the fact that this was the only way to protest the pseudo-democratic elections imposed by the dictators for show.


Partial results of the 1970 senatorial race in São Paulo state.

The only preoccupation with this new trend is that we must wonder at what point such votes represent a disengagement with the constitutional democracy or even an invalidation of this. And it is important to remember that this is not only a problem in Brazil: it is just talked about here, where the vote is obligatory. If we compare the null vote numbers to the numbers of people who don't register or vote in places like the United States or Spain (which saw falling voter turnout every election until the 2004 ones), they are actually very low. Brazilian presidents still aren't being elected by 20% of the adult population, as is the case in the United States.