Brazil Votes: Brazilian Portuguese Election Vocabulary

My first election Sunday in Brazil, I went out early for bread and found the pavement outside the school on my street covered in small paper cards. Each one had a smiling face, a name and a big number. The padaria was nearly empty. Everyone, it turned out, was at the school, standing in line to vote.

I understood almost nothing that day. People talked about the urna, about someone going to the segundo turno, about a neighbor who had voted nulo out of protest. I nodded a lot.

On Sunday, October 4, 2026, Brazil holds its general elections, and for the next few weeks the news, WhatsApp groups and family lunches will run on a very specific set of words. This guide covers the Brazilian Portuguese election vocabulary you need to follow along: voting day, the ballot machine, the campaign, and the expressions people use when they argue about all of it.

No candidates and no opinions here. Just the language.

The Dates Everyone Is Talking About

The Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE), the court that runs Brazilian elections, set this calendar:

Voting hours follow Brasília time across the whole country, so in states in other time zones the local opening time shifts to match.

This year voters choose a president, governors, senators, federal deputies and state deputies. A segundo turno only happens for president and governor, and only when no candidate wins more than half of the valid votes. You'll hear it as a verb phrase too: A eleição foi para o segundo turno means the election went to a runoff.

Pronunciation: turno sounds like "TOOR-noo." Eleição is roughly "eh-lay-SOWN," with the nasal ending you already know from não.

Voting Day: The Words at the Polling Station

Brazilians vote at an assigned place, usually a public school near home. Here's the vocabulary of that morning.

• eleitor / eleitora — voter
• título de eleitor — voter registration card (say "TCHEE-too-loo")
• e-Título — the official app version of that card
• zona eleitoral and seção eleitoral — electoral zone and polling section, printed on your registration
• mesário / mesária — poll worker, a citizen called up to run the section for the day
• cabine de votação — voting booth
• urna eletrônica — electronic voting machine, usually just a urna ("OOR-nah")
• colinha — a handwritten list of your candidates' numbers

That last one deserves a moment. Cola is school slang for a cheat sheet, and colinha is its affectionate diminutive. At an exam it gets you in trouble. At the voting booth it's allowed, and electoral courts actively recommend it, because your phone is not: it stays with the mesários while you vote, even switched off.

Brazil has used electronic voting machines since 1996, so nobody fills in a paper ballot. You type numbers.

Six Votes, One Urna

In 2026 the urna asks for six votes, in this order:

1. Deputado federal (federal deputy) — 4 digits
2. Deputado estadual (state deputy) — 5 digits; in the Federal District, deputado distrital
3. Senador, first seat — 3 digits
4. Senador, second seat — 3 digits
5. Governador — 2 digits
6. Presidente — 2 digits

Two Senate seats per state are up this year, so voters pick two different senators. The TSE's explanation of the voting order walks through it screen by screen.

The keypad has three colored keys that every Brazilian adult knows by sight:

• BRANCO (white key) — cast a blank vote
• CORRIGE (orange key) — clear what you typed and start that vote again
• CONFIRMA (green key) — confirm

After the last confirmation, the screen shows FIM and the urna plays a short electronic sound. Brazilians recognize that sound instantly. It turns up in memes every election season.

When the polls close, the apuração, the vote count, begins. Because the machines are electronic, results usually arrive on the same night.

Branco, Nulo and the Myth That Won't Go Away

These three words come up in every election conversation:

Voto válido is a vote for a candidate or a party number. Only valid votes decide who wins.

Voto branco is a blank vote, cast with the white key.

Voto nulo is a void vote. You get it by typing a number that belongs to no candidate and confirming anyway.

Every election, a message goes around saying that if more than half the voters vote nulo, the election gets cancelled. It's false. Blank and void votes are left out of the count of valid votes, and they don't cancel anything. The TSE publishes a clarification that blank and void votes don't cancel an election so often that the rumor has become part of the season.

If you hear someone say "Vou anular meu voto" ("I'm going to void my vote"), they're making a statement of protest. The arithmetic stays the same.

Campaign Vocabulary From the Street and the TV

Since August 16, campaigning has been allowed on the streets and online. The words below will be everywhere until October.

Those cards on my pavement were santinhos. The name comes from the small religious prayer cards with a saint's picture, which are about the same size. Scattering them near polling places is banned, which tells you it has happened often enough to need a rule.

Propaganda is a false friend worth catching. In Brazilian Portuguese it's the ordinary word for advertising. A TV commercial for yogurt is a propaganda, with no sinister meaning at all.

Then there's boca de urna, literally "mouth of the ballot box." It has two meanings. It's the illegal practice of trying to win votes near polling stations on election day. It's also the name of an exit poll: pesquisa de boca de urna.

Try this in Falando: Election news is perfect material for Bring Your Own Content. Paste the link to a Brazilian news article or a short YouTube news clip about the campaign, and Falando turns it into a study session with vocabulary, a hover dictionary and a quiz. Words like pesquisa, turno and candidata will show up in context.

Expressions People Use When They Argue About Politics

There's an old Brazilian saying: futebol, religião e política não se discutem, "football, religion and politics are not up for debate." In election season, almost nobody follows it. These expressions will help you keep up.

Ficar em cima do muro — to sit on the fence (literally "to stay on top of the wall"). Ele sempre fica em cima do muro. He never takes a side.

Voto útil — a tactical vote, literally a "useful vote." It's what people call voting for a candidate with a real chance rather than their favorite.

Votar no menos pior — to vote for the lesser evil. Menos pior ("less worse") makes grammar teachers wince, and everyone says it anyway.

Virar a casaca — to switch sides, literally "to turn your coat." It's used for politicians who change parties, and for football fans who change teams.

Dar zebra — when the outsider wins. If a poll's favorite loses, the headlines say deu zebra. It's one of the expressions in our guide to Brazilian Portuguese animal idioms.

Ganhar no primeiro turno — to win outright in the first round.

Who Votes? Mandatory Voting in Brazil

In Brazil, o voto é obrigatório: voting is mandatory for literate citizens aged 18 to 70. It's optional, facultativo, for 16- and 17-year-olds, people over 70, and people who can't read.

A registered voter who can't vote has to justificar o voto, explain their absence. That can be done through the e-Título app, on election day or within 60 days after each round. Skip both, and there's a fine of R$3.51 per round. The amount is tiny, but an unresolved absence can cause real problems with documents and public services, which is why Brazilians take the justification seriously.

Brazilians living abroad can vote too, but only for president.

Foreigners can't vote in Brazilian elections, even with permanent residency. Naturalized Brazilians can. If you live in Brazil on a visa, election day is a good day to watch, listen and learn words.

One more fact that surprises most people: from five days before the election until 48 hours after it closes, voters can't be arrested, except when caught in the act of a crime or under a few other specific conditions. The rule is in the Electoral Code, and it exists to stop anyone from being kept away from the polls.

Read It Like a Headline

Test yourself with these made-up headlines in the style you'll see over the next few weeks. Try to translate them before reading the English.

1. Pesquisa indica disputa acirrada no segundo turno
2. Candidata faz comício no centro e promete debate
3. Eleitores podem justificar o voto pelo e-Título
4. Deu zebra: favorito fica fora do segundo turno

Answers:

1. Poll points to a tight race in the runoff. Acirrada means fierce or close.
2. Candidate holds a rally downtown and promises a debate.
3. Voters can justify their absence through the e-Título app.
4. Upset: the favorite misses the runoff.

Which word stopped you? Look for it in a real article this week and see how it's used.

People Also Ask

When are the 2026 elections in Brazil?

The first round is on Sunday, October 4, 2026. If a runoff is needed for president or governor, it takes place on Sunday, October 25.

Can foreigners vote in Brazil?

No. Only Brazilian citizens can register to vote, including naturalized citizens. Permanent residents who aren't citizens can't vote.

What's the difference between voto branco and voto nulo?

A voto branco is cast with the white BRANCO key. A voto nulo comes from typing a number that doesn't belong to any candidate. Neither counts as a valid vote, and neither cancels the election.

What is a santinho?

A small printed card with a candidate's photo, name and number. The word also means a religious prayer card, which is where the name comes from.

Beleza, You're Ready for October

You don't need a political opinion to get a lot out of Brazil's election season. For a few weeks, a whole country repeats the same few dozen words on TV, on the street and at the dinner table. Language learning rarely gets that much repetition for free.

Pick five words from this guide (urna, turno, pesquisa, santinho and em cima do muro are a good start) and listen for them. If you want the acronyms that come with Brazilian paperwork, our guide to PIX, CPF and other everyday abbreviations will help.

To keep the core words together, Falando has a new Elections pack in Vocab Packs: fifteen words, from eleição and urna to comício and mesário, that you can add to your reviews in one go.

When a news clip gives you a phrase worth keeping, bring it into Bring Your Own Content, then let Reviews bring it back before you forget it. By October 25, segundo turno will feel like a word you've always known. Vamos lá!