Brazil's overseas electorate is one step from the one-million mark. For the October 4 first round, the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE, Brazil's superior electoral court) counts 918,876 voters registered abroad, spread across 134 countries and 186 polling stations, most of them inside embassies and consulates.
Voters outside Brazil choose only the president and vice-president. Governors, senators and federal deputies do not appear on the overseas ballot, because a voter registered abroad is not attached to any Brazilian state.
Where those voters are
The concentration is high: five countries account for more than 60% of the total.
| Country | Voters |
|---|---|
| United States | 265,400 |
| Portugal | 134,700 |
| Japan | 88,300 |
| Canada | 46,400 |
| Germany | 41,500 |
The United States alone is home to roughly one in four Brazilian voters living abroad.
Growth that has not stopped
The jump is the clearest figure in the series. In 2010, 210,000 Brazilians were registered to vote from abroad. That rose to 354,000 in 2014 and 697,000 in 2022. It now stands at 918,876 — about 32% more than at the last election, and more than four times the 2010 number.
The pace says less about civic enthusiasm than about emigration: the overseas electorate grows because the diaspora grows, and because consular re-registration has become simpler over the past two election cycles.
Who the overseas voter is
The profile drawn by the TSE differs from the domestic electorate in some notable ways:
- women make up 57%, against 43% men;
- 52% are single, 42% married;
- 38% hold a completed university degree — far above the national average — and another 13% have some higher education;
- the largest age band is 40 to 44 years;
- 6,614 voters (0.72%) registered as persons with disabilities.
"I wanted to vote, even living abroad," Victória Moretti, a 30-year-old postgraduate student in Ontario, Canada, told Agência Brasil.
If no candidate wins a majority of valid votes on October 4, the run-off is set for October 25, and the same overseas polling stations reopen.
With information from the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral and Agência Brasil.
