Chosen in April, in a symbolic vote, he will take over as the new president of the (Superior Electoral Court) on Tuesday (12).
The definition follows the rotation system by seniority among ministers of the (Supreme Federal Court). will be vice president.
The court is made up of at least seven ministers: three from , two from the STJ (Superior Court of Justice) and two lawyers (jurists). The presidency and vice-presidency are held by members of the STF, with two-year terms.
The TSE is the highest body in Brazil and its main duties are to organize, supervise and guarantee the legitimacy of elections in the country.
Its functions include registering parties and candidacies, supervising electoral propaganda and campaign accounts, administering the voting process and counting votes, in addition to judging electoral issues and appeals. The court is also responsible for issuing rules that guide elections and ensuring compliance with electoral legislation and the Constitution.
According to experts interviewed by Sheetthe court has been marked by administrations with different focuses, ranging from administrative reforms to responses to institutional crises.
Gilmar Mendes (2016-2018)
The minister took over the TSE in May 2016, it was his first presidency after the 2015 electoral reform. The change reduced the time for electoral campaigns and, by shortening the electoral calendar, also reduced the period for the Electoral Court to analyze candidacy records.
Greater transparency in the analysis of supporters’ electoral accounts marked his period in office.
According to Fernando Neisser, lawyer and president of the Permanent Commission for Studies in Political and Electoral Law at the São Paulo Lawyers Institute (IASP), before Gilmar Mendes’ administration, there was only analysis carried out by the Electoral Court itself, with limitations from the point of view of access to information.
The minister sought partnerships with the Federal Police, the Financial Activities Control Council (Coaf) and the Federal Audit Court, creating a multi-institutional team to analyze party accounts, exchanging information with the Federal Revenue.
Since then, the Electoral Court has access to the National Database for the Issuance of Electronic Invoices.
“If, for example, a campaign printed material in a printing house and did not declare it, but the printing company made the invoice, automatically the electoral agency – the expression is used to refer to the structure responsible for organizing and monitoring elections – knows the information”, explains Neisser.
Luiz Fux (2018)
He assumed the presidency of the TSE in February 2018, but only spent six months in the position, because his term at the Superior Electoral Court was already nearing its end when he assumed the presidency.
At the TSE, ministers have temporary mandates. Fux assumed the presidency in February 2018, but in August of that year he finished his second year as a permanent minister of the court and had to leave his position.
Even during his short period as president, the minister defended a more rigorous application of the Clean Record Law, a rule created to prevent the candidacy of politicians convicted by collegiate bodies or involved in practices such as corruption, abuse of power and dishonest conduct.
In 2018, in the trial regarding the candidacy registration of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the current president was barred based on the Clean Record Law after conviction in the second instance.
Fux also defended expanding the scope of the law, stating that it should be interpreted more strictly to strengthen morality and transparency in elections.
The objective was to prevent candidates with a history of irregularities from running for public office while they appealed to the courts.
Rosa Weber (2018-2020)
In August 2018, the minister assumed the presidency. Its main milestone was the organization of the production of TSE resolutions, rules that regulate the rules of the electoral process based on current legislation. Before Weber’s administration, resolutions were created for each electoral issue every two years, regarding the electoral campaign, registration of candidacies and inspection.
The minister implemented the idea of permanent resolutions. As a result, the resolutions created during the administration became fixed. It was she who created the “resolution of resolutions”, with public hearings and collection of opinions and suggestions from civil society, which generated transparency about the changes in the court’s resolution.
Furthermore, according to Guilherme Gonçalves, founder of Iprade (Paraná Institute of Electoral Law), Weber’s passage expanded the gender quota beyond candidacies.
The minister defended the reservation of public resources to ensure that at least 30% were allocated to female candidates.
Luís Roberto Barroso (2020-2022)
He took over the TSE at a time of great crisis of confidence, caused by attacks that had been ongoing since 2018 on the reliability of the voting system. The main focus of his time as president was the transformation in communication with society.
According to Neisser, Barroso brought big names in the media, such as television presenter Luciano Huck, to carry out campaigns for electoral justice. A partnership was signed with bigtechs such as Google, Meta, TikTok and X (Twitter at the time). The court created memorandums of understanding signed with the platforms to facilitate the exchange of information.
Having to hold an election during the pandemic, the minister was responsible for the logistics of free distribution of protective equipment such as masks and alcohol gel.
Edson Fachin (2022)
Minister Luiz assumed the presidency amid the debate on the new electoral code, still in the Chamber of Deputies, under the report of then deputy Margareth Coelho (PP-PI). Fachin was responsible for inviting academics, lawyers, teachers, the Public Ministry and electoral justice employees to create working groups within the TSE.
For a year, these working groups analyzed electoral standards in search of flaws, contradictions and needs for updating.
“This large project called SNE, Systematization of Electoral Standards, produced very solid reports and this was discussed with Congress, resulting in many contributions incorporated into the Electoral Code”, explains Neisser.
One of the SNE’s contributions incorporated into the discussions on the new Electoral Code was the consolidation and standardization of the rules on electoral advertising on the internet.
The work sought to bring together standards that were scattered across different resolutions and laws, proposing clearer criteria for promoting content, identifying electoral advertising and holding people accountable for spreading misinformation during campaigns.
Alexandre de Moraes (2022 – 2024)
According to Guilherme Gonçalves, founder of Iprade (Paraná Institute of Electoral Law), the minister marked his administration by confronting issues relating to the power of using social networks and the internet, and combating digital electoral fake news.
Moraes’ rule was stricter with the removal of content and the imposition of harsher fines. The minister’s focus was on institutional preservation.
Another notable case of the minister’s management was during the second round of the 2022 elections, when the then president of the TSE ordered immediate action against possible interference by the Federal Highway Police in the movement of voters, after the corporation’s operations were recorded in several states with approaches to buses and vehicles on voting day.
The case raised concerns about the neutrality of the electoral process, and the TSE ordered the suspension of these actions to guarantee the right to vote and the normality of the election. The intervention was carried out within the scope of the Electoral Court.
Carmen Lúcia (2024 – 2026)
led the updating of TSE resolutions for municipal elections. In this process, NGOs, parties, the Public Ministry, OAB and other entities went to court in person to discuss the need for rules for the use of artificial intelligence, among other topics.
His focus was to return the TSE to a position further away from the political dispute. “There was criticism from part of society and part of the political field that the TSE had become too important a character in the electoral process, and analogies of the game judge type cannot appear as much”, says Neisser.
Upon ending her time as president of the Superior Electoral Court, Cármen Lúcia chose to bring forward the transition of command of the court before the end of her period, arguing that, if she remained until the end of her term, her successor would have little time — around one hundred days — to organize the general elections.
In a TSE session, she highlighted the importance of ensuring a longer and more stable transition in the presidency of the court in an election year, in order to ensure better conditions for planning and conducting the election.
