On October 4th, the Brazilian population will go to the polls to choose new representatives for national and state Executive and Legislative positions.
Among the six votes that will be cast by each voter, one will be for federal deputy. In total, 513 parliamentarians will be elected to form the Chamber of Deputies.
In June last year, the in the country. The STF (Supreme Federal Court) understood, however, that .
Elected every four years, each deputy must represent their state. Each federative unit is represented by 8 to 70 deputies, depending on calculations based on population size.
What does a federal deputy do?
A Federal Constitution determines that the main duties of a deputy are to legislate and monitor.
Within the scope of legislation, the role of the parliamentarian is to create and analyze the PLs (Bills of Law). These proposals can be approved or vetoed through a vote among all deputies.
The presentation and voting of PLs takes place at the Chamber of Deputies. If approved, they will be analyzed at the Federal Senate and then, to the Presidency of the Republic.
They are also in charge of proposing amendments to government projects and debating reforms or changes to already established laws.
For inspection, the CPIs (Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry)who have the power to investigate facts of public interest. In addition to other inspections carried out with the help of TCU (Federal Audit Court).
They can also carry out activities that bring the population together, such as public hearings, discussions of local or national issues and meetings with specific groups in society.
It is also up to deputies to discuss and vote on the Union budget.
How are they elected
Unlike candidates for the Presidency or government of a state, for example, deputies they do not depend solely on the votes received to win a seat in the Chamber. that is, they need to reach indexes defined by what is known as electoral quotient e party quotient.
The electoral quotient is defined by sum of the number of valid votes — excluding blank or null votes — divided by number of seats up for grabs.
It is worth remembering that the number of seats for federal deputies varies according to the state. São Paulo is the state with the most vacancies in the Chamber, with 70 chairsfollowed by Minas Geraiscom 53e Rio de Janeirocom 46.
Once the electoral quotient has been arrived at, the next step is to calculate the party quotient. This will determine how many deputies from each party will be elected.
The party quotient is determined by dividing the total number of votes a party received by the electoral quotient. The result will be the number of vacancies that that acronym will be entitled to, which will be filled following the order of the candidates with the most votes.
In the event that a specific deputy is voted for by many more people than his party colleagues, he is called a “vote puller”. By exceeding the minimum number of votes to be elected, this deputy can “transfer” your votes for another parliamentarian to guarantee your seat.
This does not mean that the deputy with the least votes now has the most votes.but rather, that the remaining votes will guarantee more seats for the party.
To prevent candidates with very few votes from being elected, in 2015, the individual barrier clause. To be elected, each candidate must obtain votes equivalent to at least 10% of the electoral quotient.
Profile of deputies
In the last elections, the PL (Liberal Party) was the party that elected the most parliamentarians, with a total of 99 deputies. Then, the federation between the PT (Workers’ Party), PV (Green Party) and the PCdoB (Communist Party of Brazil) which added 81 parliamentarians.
Currently, there are 88 federal deputies from the PL and 80 from the PT, PV and PCdoB federation.
In the 2022 election, a survey of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court)the Chamber and the Diap (Inter-Union Department of Parliamentary Advisory) compiled data from the profile of the elected bench.
The survey indicated that the majority of elected parliamentarians were between 41 and 50 years old, com complete higher education and heritage between 1 and 2 million reais. Still from the total, 423 were men (82%) and 90, women (17%).
White deputies represented 72,12% of the House, while browns were 20,86% and black, 5,26%. In numbers, just 5 deputies were indigenous and 3, yellow. 1 did not report.
They were 58% re-elected and already had among 1 and 8 terms. On the other hand, 39% they would act for the first time. Others 3% They were former deputies who were elected again.
