Brasília, October 2, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - On Tuesday (1), the Chamber of Deputies approved the end of printed votes in electronic ballot boxes. Printed votes were used only in the 2002 elections, and their abolition should be ratified by Friday (3), a year ahead of the 2004 elections. The project, elaborated by Senator Eduardo Azeredo (PSDB-MG), foresees replacement of the printed vote by a digital register. The Senator argued that implanting the printing system throughout the country would entail a high cost, because the mechanism would have to be installed in over 350 thousand electronic ballot boxes that are not outfitted with vote printers.

Prior to the voting on the bill, the president of the Federal Elections Court (TSE), Minister Sepúlveda Pertence, met with the president of the Chamber, Deputy João Paulo Cunha, and party leaders to explain the reliability of the electronic ballot system, and he informed that installation of the printing system would entail expenditures of around R$ 350 million. He emphasized the difficulties caused by the printed vote in the 2002 elections, with longer lines, higher numbers of blank and invalid votes, and, most of all, problems in the printing, which led many polling places to resort to handwritten ballots.

Pertence also informed that in the 20 thousand polling places in which there were printed votes in 2002, 30.2% had to resort to handwritten ballots, as against 0.68% in ballot boxes without printed votes. (DAS)