The Superior Electoral Court (TSE) approved this Thursday, 26th, a resolution that guarantees free transportation to voters with disabilities or reduced mobility to travel to the polling place. The rule comes in the wake of the TSE’s concern with abstention, which has been growing with each election.
“The program seeks to reduce distortions arising from exclusions, sometimes invisible, with a direct impact on reducing involuntary abstentions”, stated the rapporteur, Minister Kassio Nunes Marques.
According to TSE statistics, there are currently 1.45 million voters with some type of disability or difficulty voting. The number represents around 1% of the electorate eligible to vote – 155,912,680 people.
In 2022, the then minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Luís Roberto Barroso authorized mayors to offer free public transport in the second round of that year’s general elections. The decision was expanded by the plenary in 2023, when the Court decided that public authorities have the duty to provide transportation to voters in all elections.
With the resolution approved this Thursday, the objective of the TSE is to formalize an initiative that was already taken by some Regional Electoral Courts (TREs) to facilitate access to the polls for voters with disabilities.
According to the president of the TSE, minister Cármen Lúcia, the idea is “to also allow free transport and the possibility of transport for those who, despite free transport being made available by all bodies, cannot access it”.
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This Thursday, the TSE began judging the resolutions that will guide the October election. The deadline is the 5th. The rapporteur is Nunes Marques, vice-president of the Court. He will assume the presidency this year and will lead the Court during the elections.
The instructions include standards for electoral propaganda to control disinformation driven by artificial intelligence (AI) in the campaign. This part will be analyzed on Monday, 2, when the Court will resume judging the rules. This Thursday’s session has already ended.
In the minutes released on January 19, Nunes Marques had maintained the same rules for AI as in 2024, which prohibit the publication of deepfakes and require the labeling of content created with the help of AI.
Among the new features, the minister suggested an excerpt that rules out the possibility of classifying content critical of governments as early election propaganda. The suggestions were criticized by the PT, which sees a breakdown in equality between the candidates.
In another point in the minutes that was the target of criticism, Nunes Marques proposed restricting the removal of profiles on social networks. According to the draft, this measure should only be applied in the case of a “proven false user, related to a person who does not even exist outside the virtual world (automated profile or robot) or whose publications are aimed at committing a crime”.
The preliminary text was submitted to public consultation and discussed in hearings at the Court’s headquarters. In total, the TSE received 1,423 suggestions for changes. The resolutions presented now incorporate part of the proposals made by civil society.
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