BRASÍLIA — I've covered a lot of elections. I've watched ballots counted by candlelight and results announced before the polls closed. On Sunday, Brazil found a new one. It ran out of buses, so it ran out the clock.
Here's what happened, per the Associated Press, BBC News Brasil and Brazil's top electoral court. Polls in the runoff between President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro were set to close at 5 p.m. Brasília time, nationwide, at once. That's the rule. Around midday, Lula's campaign started asking courts for more time, first in Salvador and two other cities in Bahia, then more states, then the whole country. The complaint was that public buses were running on a reduced weekend fleet in cities that tend to vote for Lula. Bolsonaro's campaign also asked for more time, citing heavy rain.
At 4:32 p.m., according to BBC News Brasil, the facts reached Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin. Zanin, for those keeping score at home, was Lula's personal lawyer before Lula appointed him to the court in 2023. He ordered voting extended to 7 p.m. everywhere. The order came out a little after 5, when a lot of polling stations had already closed, sealed their machines and, in some places, handed them in. So Zanin clarified: only the stations that were still open would stay open. The electoral court paused the tally, which every Brazilian spent two hours staring at, and resumed after 7.
BBC News Brasil called the decision unprecedented in a presidential election since the return of democracy. I'd call it a bus schedule with a gavel.
Let's do the sewer scale. A tight presidential runoff where the incumbent's campaign asks for overtime, and the judge who grants it used to be the incumbent's lawyer? That's four rats out of five. I'd give it five, but the other guy asked for extra time too, and a fair rat docks a point for that.
Meet Sérgio, 47, a made-up voter in São Paulo who made it to his polling place at 4:55 by running behind a bus that wasn't there. Sérgio voted, went home, and was told on the news that voting was now open until 7. He wasn't sure whether to go back. He decided to stay home and wait for a ruling on whether his first vote had been extended too.
I will say this for Brazil. It counts fast. Its electronic machines usually wrap the whole thing up before dinner. This time the machines were ready on schedule. The calendar wasn't. When an election runs late, it's usually because somebody is still counting. In Brasília, somebody was still deciding when it ended.
The results will be what they will be, and the courts will be very busy explaining them. Somewhere in a garage in Salvador, 75 buses are sitting very still, hoping nobody asks them anything.
And here's your bill: nothing, for once. Brazil's overtime is on Brazil. Your Sunday is still yours, at least until somebody files a motion.
This article is satire. The Demorat is a parody news site; real facts are drawn from the linked sources, and jokes, invented scenes, and fictional characters are not real.
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