The proposal of the MP Renata Abreu from Podemos is aimed at reviving the so-called district, which has already been rejected twice by the plenary session of the Chamber, in 2015 and 2017.

Today the system for electing deputies and councilors is proportional. Vacancies are distributed in proportion to the number of votes received by candidates and parties.

The candidates with the most votes are elected in the constituency, and the system does not take into account the votes of the losing candidates and parties. In practice, these votes will be dropped, meaning that the elections to the legislature will become the majority, as is the case with the president, governors, senators and mayors.

“The district is becoming a simpler system because you select the most voted, eliminate those who gain votes, and the criticism that we hear many times, in practice, in my understanding, this is the same thing that already applies to the proportional system”, – says Renata Abreu.

Political scientists disagree. According to them, the new system favors celebrity candidacies outside of political life, which increases competition with parliamentarians themselves. As a result, the dispute will value party ideas and programs less and become more personal, diminishing and weakening the role of parties and, taken together, of democracy.

“The constituency is the worst electoral system imaginable, firstly, because it destroys political parties, everything is much more dependent on voting for individuals, and not on voting for parties. It also makes it difficult to debate ideas, ”said political scientist Claudio Coutu of FGV.

Analysts note that the district also ends up wasting voters’ preferences as voting can no longer be used to help elect candidates from other parties.

“Only the vote given to the elected is taken into account, all other votes cast by all other voters for the not elected candidates are discarded. This is a big problem. He will leave a huge section of society without any representation, since even one vote given to someone from this party, at least, will not help elect someone with a similar idea who is part of the same group. This voice is simply lost, ”explains Claudio Cootu.

Renata Abreu’s proposal also stipulates that the constituency will be valid only for the 2022 elections, this will be a transition to the so-called mixed constituency, which will be adopted in the next elections.

In a mixed constituency, the voter would vote twice. For a candidate registered in his constituency, which constituency will be determined by the Supreme Electoral Court one year before the election. The second vote will be for a candidate from the list drawn up by the parties. Half of the vacancies will be filled among the most voted in the constituency, and the other half will follow the open-list proportional system, as is the case today.

A mixed district system will be adopted for the Chamber of Deputies, Legislatures and Municipal Chambers with over 100,000 voters. In smaller municipalities, the so-called district will continue.

A discussion in a special commission is only the first step. Since the proposal affects the Constitution, it must be voted and approved twice in the Chamber of Deputies and twice in the Senate, as a three-fifths vote, and before early October, otherwise it will not be valid in the Chamber of Deputies. Election 2022.