TSE allows candidate to adopt collective names in the ballot box in 2022
The plenary of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) approved today (16) four more resolutions that regulate the procedures for the 2022 general elections. Among the main innovations is the express authorization for the names of collective candidacies to appear in the ballot box.
The novelty was included in the resolution that deals with the registration of candidacies and provides that, beside the individual name of the effectively registered candidate, there should be the name of the collective or group that represents their candidacy, as long as it fits within the allowed 30 characters.
The proposal was presented by the rapporteur of the resolution, Minister Edson Fachin, and approved unanimously. For him, the new norm “concretes a guideline for the democratization of political participation, which does not conflict with any legal rule, since the candidacy continues to be individualized”.
With this understanding, the minister rejected a proposal made by a lawyer, who suggested the express prohibition of collective candidacies, as they were not foreseen in the electoral legislation.
“The so-called collective candidacy represents only a format for promoting the candidacy, which allows the candidate to highlight their engagement in a social movement or collective. This engagement is not an element able to confuse the electorate, but rather to clarify the profile of the candidate or candidate”, wrote Fachin in justifying the new rule.
In the plenary session that approved the rule, Minister Carlos Horbach praised the solution found by the rapporteur, according to which the name of collectives should appear next to the name of the individual candidate, thus avoiding the adoption of only generic nomenclatures in the ballot box.
Horbach mentioned a survey on the registration, in past elections, of slates with generic names such as “Coletivo Nós, Coletivo Encanto, Coletivo Inclusion”, which resulted in the opening of several challenges in the Electoral Court. "Names of this nature are not included" in the new resolution, stressed the minister.
federations
The TSE also approved this Thursday (16) the resolutions that deal with electoral polls, the totalization of votes and proclamation of results and the electoral calendar.
In all cases, the new institute of party federations, created by Congress in this year's electoral reform, was incorporated into the text of the norm. The inclusion always foresees that the federations have the same obligations of the parties.
For example, to participate in elections, the party federation must register a statute with the TSE up to six months before the elections, the same period required for individual parties.
In the case of disputes for majority positions (president and governor), federations can create coalitions to defend this or that candidate, just as parties do. For this, they must designate a representative to act as the president of the federation to the coalition.
In other words, for all intents and purposes, the federation is subject to the same rules as an individual party, as if it were a single acronym. This occurs, for example, in the calculation of the party quotient, which in proportional elections defines how many seats in the Chamber each party or federation will be entitled to.
As in the municipal elections of 2020, in the general elections of next year it will not be allowed to form coalitions for the dispute of positions in the Legislative.
Text translated using artificial intelligence.
