How it began
Brazil's Superior Electoral Court, the TSE, put a computerized register of voters in place in 1985. In 1995 it formed a technical committee to design a voting machine. The committee was led by researchers from the National Institute for Space Research and the Aerospace Technical Center in Sao Jose dos Campos, and it wrote the operating requirements. The machine was first called the Electronic Vote Collector. It was used for the first time in the municipal elections of 1996, in more than 50 municipalities.
How it works
The first model, known as UE96, was a modified computer compatible with the IBM PC 80386. It was built by a Brazilian partnership of three companies, Omnitech, Microbase and Unisys do Brasil, in response to a call for proposals from the court. Its original operating system, VirtuOS, was similar to MS-DOS with support for multitasking and was written by Microbase. It ran the machines in the elections of 1996, 1998 and 2000.
How it spread
After the 1996 trial, including in the state of Santa Catarina, the machines were used in the national elections of 1998. In 2000 they became the only way to vote, which made Brazil the first country to hold elections completely on an electronic system. The court states that the machine now serves as a model for several other countries, which have tested it for use in their own elections.
Who pushed back
Criticism has centered on verification. A Stanford University case study noted that the software code on the machines had not been released to the public, although many people working on electronic voting called for open source code. It also reported that security debate in Brazil focused on whether voters can verify their votes, and quoted a University of Brasilia computer scientist on proposed laws to enforce voter verifiability.
Where it stands today
The court continues to fund research and development of the system and holds a regular event called the Public Safety Test. The operating system has been replaced over successive election cycles. In March 2009 the court received a technology award for its part in developing the voting machines, from a partnership of the University of Sao Paulo, George Washington University and the Business Software Alliance.
