Brazil: voting rights are flouted

Sergipe’s largest prison is located in the historic city of São Cristóvão. Known as COPEMCAN (Complexo Penitenciario Manoel Carvalho Neto), the facility holds three times more prisoners than it has places. The vast majority of these people are in pre-trial detention. Presumed innocent, they are note deprived of their political rights.
In detention, prisoners depend on the authorities for all of their administrative procedures. A 2010 resolution of the Superior Electoral Court of Brazil requires electoral, judicial and penitentiary bodies to make a collective effort to guarantee the exercise of the right to vote to persons in pre-trial detention.

It is thus recommended that campaigns for the issuance of identity documents, regularisation and registration in the electoral roll be launched. The authorities are also required, since 2010, to set up polling stations in all prisons with at least 20 registered voters.

However, it appears that the exercise of the right to vote by COPEMCAN detainees is not a central concern of the authorities, despite the 2010 resolution. “Out of sight, out of mind”: sources underline the inaction of the authorities regarding the registration of detainees on the electoral roll and their regularisation (payment of fines, issuance of identity documents). Those who are already have declared residence in the City of São Cristóvão before their incarceration and are registered can vote. The others, a majority, should be able to apply for temporary registration to access the prison polling station.

Will the same be true for the 2022 vote? The local judiciary is taking up the issue. In April, the Regional Electoral Tribunal of the State of Sergipe (TRE-SE), which is responsible for monitoring and organising the elections, issued a formal injunction to the prison authorities. It reminded them that voter registration must be done online before 4 May, according to the electoral calendar published in December 2021. The TRE-SE offered to the prison authorities to co-operate in the registration of pre-trial prisoners on the electoral roll and in the setting up of polling stations within the prisons.
While the injunction was sent at the beginning of April, the response from the prison administration arrived on 3 May. The Secretariat of Justice (SEJUC), in charge of the regional prison administration, stated that the prisons were equipped with the necessary technological means (computers, tablets, etc.) for the online registration enabling pre-trial prisoners to vote. However, it said that after consultation with prison directors, it appeared that they would not be able to provide the necessary logistics and security to enable remand prisoners to register, as it was already just one day before the deadline.

The TRE-SE was questioned by the public prosecutor. It confirmed that polling stations would be present in prison, but that people who had to register or regularise their voter card had not been able to do so.
The prosecutor, Augusto César Leite de Resende, told Prison Insider in September that this constituted “a serious violation of the political rights of these defendants”, rights that are enshrined in the Brazilian Constitution and in the American Convention on Human Rights. According to him, there was only a “partial guarantee of this right, as the prisoners who needed to transfer their electoral domicile or regularise their situation were not given the opportunity to do so”. Augusto César is currently serving a two-year term as Electoral Prosecutor for the jurisdiction of São Cristóvão, which includes the COPEMCAN prison complex.

In June, the prosecutor initiated a collective civil suit on behalf of the Prosecutor’s Office against the State of Sergipe. He demands that “administrative, technical and security measures” be put in place for the next elections to guarantee the right to vote to all persons in pre-trial detention. It is already too late for the 2022 vote. The prosecutor called for the State of Sergipe to be condemned for violating a fundamental right and for the compensation of all pre-trial prisoners that were unable to vote.

There are currently 1,411 people in pre-trial detention in Sergipe State, according to figures provided by the prison administration by email on 28 September. Of these, only 498 will be able to vote.

2 October 2022. Election day has arrived. At the COPEMCAN prison facility, the videoconference office has been transformed for one day to become polling station 275 and receive the voting prisoners. Four people, members of the prison staff and the prison’s care unit, are volunteering as president and assessors of the polling station. “This is the first time that a polling station is set up at COPEMCAN”, explains one of the assessors. Some 2,700 men are held in this facility, the majority of whom are pre-trial prisoners. Among them, 26 are registered on the electoral list. As soon as the polling station opens at 8am, voting prisoners are accompanied out of their cells by the prison police. One by one, they are brought to the polling station. Then comes the turn of prisoners in semi-liberty regime, called “collaborators”: they work in the facility, in the general service or in the care unit for example. “The collaborators queue up to vote, just like outside,” explains a member of staff.

A list with the names and numbers of the candidates is posted on the wall next to the electronic ballot box. Before that, it was already available in the social workers’ office. “They can check the list of candidates before they go to vote, but many of them came with their ‘colinha’ [paper where you write down the number of the candidate of your choice]”. A “collaborator” prisoner said that he had been informed in advance of the possibility of voting by the prison management.

We asked him about the low number of voters compared to the number of people in pre-trial detention: “I think it’s because a lot of prisoners don’t have documents”. Indeed, many prisoners do not have any identity documents, which hinders all administrative and legal procedures. Some people are sent to prison after being held in police custody even though they have neither identity papers nor biometric documents. These “non-citizens”, once incarcerated, are yet further excluded from society. At COPEMCAN, we are told that social workers spend their days trying to get these “undocumented citizens” back into the system. “If the prison wasn’t overcrowded, it would be easier,” they tell us. “There are too many prisoners for too few staff.

Is the situation in COPEMCAN prison an exception or is it a mirror of the national situation? The Superior Electoral Tribunal communicated, on the eve of the vote, that 220 polling stations were present in the country’s penitentiaries. A total of 14,653 people were registered, including prisoners and prison staff. When compared to the countries 227, 622 pre-trial prisoners in 2021, this figure can seem low.