In honor of all the Californians hitting the polls today to vote in the primaries, I thought I would share some observations about Brazil's voting systems. Warning, you probably won't really enjoy this post unless you are a political junkie.
Observation #1: This country has only been voting for twenty years. They will elect their 5th president in October. Before that it was dictators and changes in administration came mainly by way of coup d'état.
Observation #2: EVERY person votes. That's right, 100% voter participation and 100% voter turn-out. If you don't vote, you do not have access to any government services. At first this sounded insane to me, but think about a politician that must appeal to the entire population in order to win. This means that the poor guy in the favelas matter just as much as the rich guy down at Ipanema beach because you know they will both vote.
Observation #3: Brazil's entire voting system is electronic. No hanging chads here. This fascinates me because, well, they've been doing this for only twenty years and they are also a third world country. We don't even do this in the United States and yet we are the most industrialized democracy in the world.
With that, don't forget to vote today. No complaining to me about this government that we live and work for if you don't vote. Show me your sticker if you want to talk politics.
In Down Under, one gets fined if we don't vote when we can.
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