The electoral system is radically different from Brazil’s, and the administrative process is one of the most decentralized in the world.
There is no independent national authority responsible for organizing elections, like the Brazilian one. There, each state or county manages its own voter registrations, sets administrative procedures, and conducts voting locally. The authorities who administer elections are often appointed by governors. This institutional design was designed to reduce the risk of centralized control of the electoral process, organization and election results.
As for the electoral system, in addition to adopting majority criteria, the term of office for deputies lasts only two years, and for senators four. Therefore, midterm elections take place in the middle of the presidential term, which are seen as an important barometer of the president’s approval or disapproval. It is a chance for voters to change the balance of power by granting the president a legislative majority or punish him with the loss of that majority.
is very concerned about the performance of its allies in the November elections. state election officials, politicians, academics, and organizations focused on the health of American democracy.
A symbolic episode was the recent seizure, by , of hundreds of boxes containing ballots, voter lists and other records from the 2020 presidential election in Fulton County, Georgia. It is his co-religionist, responsible for managing the elections, who won the dispute in the state in 2020. The operation took place even after multiple audits and recounts that ruled out irregularities.
The episode took on an even more unusual shape with the direct involvement of high-ranking federal government officials and reports of the president’s personal participation in discussions about the investigation, which could set a dangerous precedent for new federal interventions during future electoral processes.
At the same time, the Department of Justice requested that several states have full access to voter registrations. President Trump’s administration wants the power to exclude voters from state rolls.
The tense atmosphere was reinforced by statements from Trump’s former strategist who said he would like to see federal immigration agents stationed near polling places in the midterm elections taking place in November.
In consolidated democracies, confidence in elections depends both on formal rules and on the perception of neutrality of the institutions that administer them. By tightening this boundary, actions such as those observed in recent months are no longer just administrative disputes and begin to erode the legitimacy of the American electoral system.
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