Brazil Election Chaos Cheat Sheet: • Brazil provides free busing to and from voting centers • In order to be deemed neutral, those buses are not allowed to have any political signs, etc • In several states that skew toward Lula, the buses had "PT" stars affixed to them (PT is Lula's party). The official in charge of busing said those buses could not run unless the signs were taken down, delaying the busing. Lots of finger-pointing ensued • There is an election tribunal in Brazil that oversees election legal issues, but Lula went around it and appealed directly to the Supreme Court • The SC assigns a single justice to review; Lula asked for an extension specifically IN THOSE STATES (which heavily skew toward Lula) • The Justice who made the decision was previously Lula's PERSONAL LAWYER and is a Lula appointee • Once Bolsonaro knew Lula was asking for extensions and suspected it would be granted (given which justice was reviewing), he also requested extensions so they would be nationwide, and not just in Lula territory • A nationwide extension was granted just AFTER the polling stations were supposed to close (5:00pm). However, once a voting machine is locked for the day, it cannot be unlocked. In practice, this meant most polling stations were not able to reopen and offer extended voting because they'd closed at 5pm • By an AMAZING coincidence, nearly all of the voting machines that hadn't yet locked were in the four states where Lula polls well over 70% popularity (northeast) • There are supposed to be two observers (one from each side) at all polling stations. At many of the extended stations, the word is there were not two observers • In the first round voting (three weeks ago), Bolsonaro won 47% and Lula 45% of 119mm votes, with ~8% to third-party candidates • Of the 8%, the candidates skewed strongly to the right (Bolsonaro); everyone assumed Bolsonaro would take the large majority of that 8% and win easily in round two (yesterday) • As it turned out, Lula "outperformed" in basically every state • Also, apparently 5 million more people voted in round two (yesterday) than in round one • Lula picked up 10.5mm votes, whereas Bolsonaro picked up 3.7mm, leading to tremendous suspicion, as 3.7mm isn't even the majority of the 8% right-leaning opportunity from round one, and implies Bolsonaro received 0% of the incremental 5 million votes and less than half of the jump ball votes • Chaos ensues. The $EWZ Brazil index ETF has been down as much as 28% this morning (mix of currency and index declines)