In a tweet complementing the original publications, the author stated that she was not presenting any official statistics. It was just, according to her, a way to “dimension the size of our pain and our mourning” by dividing the number of deaths from covid-19 until then, correctly rounded to 686,000by 280, which would be the average number of voters in a polling station.
according to article 117 of the Electoral Code, a polling station cannot have more than 400 voters in capital cities or 300 in other locations. For this year’s elections, with a record electorate of 156,454,011the average number of voters per polling station is 314.
misleading, for Comprova, is content taken from the original context and used in another so that its meaning undergoes changes; that uses inaccurate data or that leads to an interpretation different from the author’s intention; content that confuses, with or without the deliberate intent to cause harm.
Scope of publication: As of September 28, the post had 48,500 likes on Twitter and 154,920 likes on Instagram. The publication was also mentioned in the matter of the Brasil Atual Network on the 26th.
What the author of the publication says: Sought by Comprova, the magistrate and writer Andréa Pachá explained: “The meaning is not literal. I divided 686,000 dead by 280, which is the average number of voters per section. A way of scaling pain and loss.” At another point, she added: “Sometimes I have a hard time dealing with the literality of networks. I hope I managed to raise awareness of the unacceptable number of losses we had”. The explanation appears in another post made by her.
How do we check: Comprova verified official data on the 2018 and 2022 elections on the website of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) and on deaths from covid-19 on the federal government panel. The press office of the TSE and reports related to the record of registration of new voters in this year’s election were also consulted.
Polling stations increased in the country
It is misleading that there was a reduction in polling stations in Brazil in this year’s elections compared to the 2018 election. In fact, the opposite happened. According to data from the TSE portal, Brazil has 496,856 polling stations currently. Already in 2018, there were 481,863. Therefore, there was a rise of 3%.
The greater number of polling stations reflects the increase in the number of Brazilians eligible to vote in these elections, whose first round takes place next Sunday (02/10). At the moment, Brazil has 156,454,011 voters eligible to vote. In 2018, there were 147,306,275.
In the 2020 elections, the number of polling stations – 483,665 – was also higher compared to the 2018 election.
In May of this year, upon closing the electoral register for the 2022 elections, the TSE released the registration of 2,042,817 new voter registrations among 16 and 18 year olds: historic mark in the country, according to the court. As of September 26, the deaths recorded by covid-19 in Brazil reached 685,835 people, according to the federal government panel.
according to article 117 of the Electoral Codea polling station cannot have more than 400 voters in capital cities or 300 in other locations.
When contacted, the TSE replied that it “does not carry out a qualitative analysis of these data”.
Users interpret data as real
Although the author of the post have explained that the relationship drawn between deaths by covid-19 and the number of polling stations was merely illustrative, some comments show that there were people believing it to be a real data, as shown in the screenshots below:
why do we investigate: Comprova investigates suspicious content that goes viral on the internet and is related to this year’s presidential elections, the covid-19 pandemic or public policies of the federal government. The verified post, by citing an alleged data related to the country’s polling stations, even if hypothetical, as the author of the post explained, may cause doubts or misinterpretations in relation to the ongoing electoral process, even if this was not the intention of the author.
Other checks on the topic: Regarding the elections, Comprova has recently shown to be false that 70% of the electoral process is outsourced and that outsourcing compromises the integrity of electionsthat a Tweet misleads by indicating 17 as Bolsonaro’s ballot box number in 2022 is that is a post montage with an alleged report by the G1 on Lula and Venezuela.
Investigated by CNN Brasil, Imirante.com, O DIA and Crusoé. Verified by SBT, SBT News, Correio, Nexo, Piauí, O Popular, Estadão and Grupo Sinos.
Source: CNN Brasil
