It plans to vote in the beginning of 2025 that revokes the current legislation and establishes a new and only electoral code.
The proposal, which was three and a half years in the drawer, has the formal goal of modernizing and simplifying the rules, but brings several points that.
The text also addresses an old theme of interest of parliamentarians: electoral polls.
The project approved by the House in 2021, under the leadership of (PP-AL), established censorship of the dissemination of research on the eve and on the day of the claim and the requirement of publication by the institutes of a “hit rate” of past elections.
The current Senate report withdrew censorship and changed the idea of fee for another “reliability indicator.”
In addition, the complementary bill approved by the deputies, with 898 articles, placed ties to the judiciary, establishing, for example, that Congress would have the power to stop decisions of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court).
The text went to the Senate and is, to this day, in the Constitution and Justice Commission, the first stage of processing.
Chosen by party agreement to command the CCJ, Senator Otto Alencar (PSD-BA) stated that the vote on the subject will be one of his priorities as soon as the commission is installed, which should occur next days. To take effect in time for the 2026 elections, the proposal needs to be approved by Congress by September this year.
He also defends the idea, not included in the project, to unify all in one year.
The rapporteur of the project () is Senator Marcelo Castro (MDB-PI), who presented the first version of his opinion in March last year. After receiving amendments, he published new reports in June and December.
Castro withdrew from the PLP some of the points criticized by electoral transparency entities, among them which allowed Congress to suspect TSE decisions and what released parties to use party fund money for virtually any purpose.
He kept, however, other controversial points.
Among them is what eliminated the standardization of the presentation and dissemination of party accounts, the SPCA (), and what limits the performance of the Electoral Justice to a mere checking of formal aspects of the benefits (accounting errors, for example), excluding the Possibility of investigating irregularities such as overpricing and embezzlement of public campaign resources.
Public resources are currently the main source of party funding and candidates, totaling more than $ 6 billion with each dispute.
The part of the text of the Chamber maintained by Castro also diminishes the current deadlines of ineligibility, a theme that returned to the agenda due to pro-world demonstrations from the new mayor, Hugo Motta (Republicans-PB), and parliamentarians combined with (PL).
The former president is ineligible due to two convictions in the Electoral Court and may also be punished in the criminal area.
The text approved by the House in 2021 limits the ineligibility to up to eight years, establishing that its beginning is the date of the court decision. Today, the eight years of ineligibility begins to count from the end of the execution of the imposed penalty or the mandate to which the politician was elected, which in practice gives more than eight years.
Congressmen argue to reduce the period even more than what was approved in 2021.
In another passage, the project limits to 360 days the technical analysis period of party accounts and to three years their trial. In the current model, the court has used an average of five years of time, which can result in automatic approval of benefits without analysis and judgment.
In the case of electoral polls, the two proposals approved by the House, both the “percentage of hits” and that of censorship of dissemination on the eve and election day, are criticized by directors of research institutes.
They argue, among other points, that the measure impairs the voter’s right to information as one of the elements to define his vote. In addition, they point out that research aims to measure the situation at the moment, not to stuck the result of the ballot box, which can be affected by movements that occur until election day.
Castro withdrew from the report the censorship and the “hit rate”, but incorporated similar proposal: that the candidate’s voting intent on the last three polls was informed by the institute in the previous dispute, “in confrontation with the percentage of votes calculated by the Electoral Justice “. The measure would be valid for the elections for mayor, governor, senator and president of the Republic.
Sought through his advisory, Castro did not comment on the points listed above.
In addition to voting on the new code, the House is moving to promote other changes in electoral legislation. Hugo Motta.
Among parliamentarians, there are diffuse desires that, in addition to the issue of ineligibility, range from the loosening of the barrier clause – – until the defense of the change of the electoral system and the return of the business funding of the campaigns.
