Center and right-wing parties today in the majority are once again articulating a change in the electoral system that has non-coinciding objectives behind the scenes and in public discourse.
In the microphones, defenders of the adoption of the so-called “” claim to seek greater harmony between voters and parliamentarians and to bar criminals from entering politics, a speech that gained strength after the , in Rio.
Behind the curtains, however, parliamentarians heard by the Sheet They say they see no impact of this system against the penetration of criminal factions into politics — some even claim that the change would make entry easier.
For these congressmen, the centrão’s objectives include expanding the power of party leadership and the group’s growth prospects, as well as drastically reducing the impact of “vote pullers”, several of them digital influencers and with anti-system speech.
The mixed district was made by the president of the Chamber, (-PB), who chose deputy Domingos Neto (-CE) as rapporteur for the proposal, in a move that received public praise from the president of the PSD, .
The starting point will be the , authored by José Serra (PSDB-SP), approved by the Senate in 2017 and since then sitting in the drawer of the Chamber’s Constitution and Justice Committee. If approved, the new model would not be valid in 2026 (due to the principle of annuality), but rather from the municipal dispute in 2028 (for cities with more than 200 thousand inhabitants) and in general in 2030.
Domingos Neto, appointed rapporteur by Motta in April, says he has a text ready, just waiting for the voting date to be set.
Today, the choice of federal and state deputies and councilors follows the open list proportional system. The voter votes for a candidate or party and the votes of all names from the same party are added together. This total defines how many seats the party or federation will be entitled to.
If an acronym reaches, for example, three seats, the three candidates with the most votes within it are elected, even if others, from outside the party, obtained more individual votes.
In the mixed district model approved by the Senate in 2017, the distribution of vacancies occurs in two stages. First, the state is divided into electoral districts, each electing a representative — the candidate with the most votes in the region. This phase corresponds to half of the available seats.
The other half is filled according to the vote given to the parties. Each party defines a pre-ordered list of candidates (called a closed list), and the vacancies are distributed proportionally to the vote received by the party throughout the state. Thus, the voter would have two votes: one for the candidate in his district and one for the party.
In practice, the system reduces the burden of “vote pullers”. Today they take several colleagues with the least votes to the Legislature. Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG) and Guilherme Boulos (PSOL-SP), for example, helped to elect 6 and 2 deputies from their parties, respectively, with their votes.
In the new model, they would only elect themselves. Minorities, politicians and parties benefiting from the so-called “opinion votes”, which are more dispersed, would also tend to lose space.
Domingos Neto states that his report will establish that the vote for the candidate (in the dispute for the first half of the seats) automatically counts as a vote for that person’s party (the second half), excluding the need for the voter to vote twice.
The rapporteur states that the main objective of the project is to bring voters closer to their representative. “Where the district vote is placed, the motivation is accountability [prestação de contas]. You can demand from your parliamentarian. Today, almost 90% of voters do not remember who they voted for. This changes. Voters will need to have a relationship with their federal deputy, more or less like they have with the mayor”, he states.
He says he is convinced that the model will make it very difficult for organized crime to enter politics.
“Would you be able to map out, among 2,000 candidates in São Paulo, which ones are linked to crime or not? You won’t be able to. Now, if there are ten candidates in your district, the press, the Public Ministry and political opponents will shine a spotlight on the dispute. It is much more complex for criminal factions to be able to participate in an electoral process under a spotlight, which is something they don’t like.”
Critics of the measure disagree. “The argument suggests that the geography of the vote would be enough to stop criminal organizations, as if factions that control territories could be ‘removed’ by electoral redesign. The logic ignores the Brazilian reality: crime already infiltrates public apparatus, finances candidacies and controls areas precisely due to the absence of the State”, says Diap (Departamento Intersindical de Assessoria Parlamentar) published last Monday (3).
Juliana Sakai, executive director of the NGO Transparência Brasil, states that simply exchanging the current proportional electoral system for a district or mixed district system does not have the capacity to prevent the advance of organized crime in politics. “We have had cases of mayors being elected in 2024 linked to organized crime, and it was not the majority system that prevented these elections,” he comments.
According to her, in a district system there is a risk of there being electoral districts in which a criminal organization has enough representation to elect its candidates or coerce and co-opt political leaders.
“If the real intention of Congress is to prevent the financing of politics by crime, we should prioritize strengthening the Electoral Justice and the election and party accountability system.”
Both critics and congressmen also point out the possibility of a definition of districts that benefits the groups that currently command Congress, opening space for an arm wrestling similar to , where Republicans and Democrats sponsor the redesign of districts with the aim of increasing their forces in the Capitol.
In addition to the criticism, the current attempt to change the electoral model comes up against a broad record of defeats in Congress itself, which in recent years has rejected several other proposals for change, including the mixed district itself and the “district” (which elects the most voted, without taking into account the weight of the parties).
UNDERSTAND THE MODELS
PROPORTIONAL ELECTIONS (CURRENT)
Charges: federal, state/district deputies and councilors
The voter votes:
- In a candidate or
- Directly in a party/federation
- The votes of all candidates and the party are added together
- The electoral quotient is calculated (valid votes divided by the number of vacancies)
- Each party/federation receives a number of seats proportional to its total vote
- The most voted candidates within each party are elected until the number of seats won is completed.
Example:
- State has 10 seats
- Party A gets enough votes for 3 seats
- The 3 most voted candidates from Party A will win the seats
Effects:
- “Voter pull” candidates can elect colleagues with low votes
- Campaigns tend to be more expensive, carried out throughout the state
- Voters often do not know who their direct representative is
- Decision-making power is more focused on the candidate’s individual performance
MIXED DISTRICT
Each state (or municipality) would be divided into electoral districts, equivalent to half of the available seats.
Example: 70 federal deputies (São Paulo) → 35 districts.
- The voter votes for a candidate from his district (nominal vote)
- This vote counts for the party, which has a pre-ordered list of candidates
Half of the chairs go to:
- The candidates with the most votes in each district (majority system)
The other half is distributed:
- Between parties, according to the total number of party votes in the state
- Vacancies are filled in the order of the list presented by each caption
Example:
- State has 10 seats → 5 districts + 5 party seats
- 5 candidates elected directly in the districts
- The other 5 come from the party list, according to the total number of party votes in the state
PROS AND CONS OF THE MIXED DISTRICT
Pros:
- Brings voters and representatives together (each district has a known representative)
- Reduces the cost of campaigns (smaller area of activity)
- Strengthens parties and reduces the weight of “vote pullers”
- Can reduce party fragmentation
- Defenders say the model makes it difficult for organized crime to penetrate by shining a spotlight on disputes
Contras:
- It takes weight away from opinion votes and candidates who represent minorities
- Risk of local oligarchization (districts dominated by families or regional groups)
- Less freedom of individual choice, as part of the vacancies come from party lists
- Strengthening party fiefdoms and ‘councillorization’ of state and federal deputies
- Critics claim that it does not stop the penetration of crime, which has already elected mayors suspected of links to factions
