The Carter Center has reversed an earlier decision and will send an election observation mission to Brazil's October vote, about 20 days after telling the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), the country's top electoral authority, that it would not take part. The reversal was reported on Monday (24) by the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo. The organization is the only U.S. group invited by the electoral court to monitor this year's election.
According to people who follow the matter and spoke to Folha, the center's team of experts plans to focus its work on Brazil's electronic voting system and on voter education. At the end of the process, the observers will produce a report covering both areas.
The organization had informed the court of its withdrawal in early August. At the time, it cited financial difficulties caused by a US$9 billion cut to U.S. foreign aid, proposed by President Donald Trump and approved by the U.S. Congress last year, which led to the shutdown of USAID, the American international development agency. According to CartaCapital magazine, the Carter Center's losses were estimated at US$11 million, worsened by European donors redirecting funds to the European Union's own mission for the October vote.
The electoral court's bet on international observers
Justice Kassio Nunes Marques, the TSE's president, has told associates he wants to expand international monitoring to shield the election from potential challenges to the results and to the electronic voting machines used nationwide. On August 17, he received representatives of dozens of foreign embassies in Brasília and said the observation missions will "assess the integrity, the operational effectiveness and the strict compliance with Brazilian electoral rules." He did not mention the Carter Center among the confirmed organizations at the time precisely because the court had already been told the group could not come.
"In this election, as has been done since 2018, international observation missions will be able to officially follow different stages of the electoral process, including public audit ceremonies, the preparation of electronic voting machines, voting, counting and the tabulation of votes," Kassio told the diplomats.
Alongside the Carter Center, the Organization of American States (OAS), the European Union, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries and the Inter-American Union of Electoral Organizations are also set to observe the vote, according to CartaCapital. The International Foundation for Electoral Systems, another U.S. group, has said it will not participate this year. The back-and-forth comes amid diplomatic friction between Brasília and Washington: last month, Brazil's Foreign Ministry denied visas to two U.S. government employees on the grounds that they intended to interfere in the Brazilian election, the magazine reported.
Founded in 1982 by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter (1924-2024) and his wife, Rosalynn Carter (1927-2023), the Carter Center has organized more than 100 election observation missions in some 40 countries. In Brazil, it monitored the 2022 election, won by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over Jair Bolsonaro, with a team of four specialists over two months. Its final report on that vote attested to the integrity of the process and the reliability of the voting machines, while recommending that the TSE step up its fight against disinformation.