President Donald Trump pointed to Brazil’s rapid reporting of roughly 125 million presidential votes as he renewed criticism of slower ballot counting in Detroit, Philadelphia and California, declaring that “Voting in America is CORRUPT!!!”
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump cited Brazil’s rapid presidential election count Sunday night as evidence that U.S. jurisdictions should be able to produce results much faster, contrasting the South American country’s same-day reporting with ballot-counting procedures in Detroit, Philadelphia and California.
“125 Million People voted today in the first round of Brazil’s Presidential Election,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “The results came out shortly after the vote closed, on the SAME DAY!”
Trump then turned his attention to several Democratic-led U.S. jurisdictions that have faced criticism over extended ballot-counting periods.
“In Detroit, Philadelphia, California, and numerous other U.S. Cities and States, the results, with much smaller numbers, will often take weeks to Rig, I mean, calculate,” Trump wrote.
“Voting in America is CORRUPT!!!” he added.
Trump’s comparison followed Brazil’s first-round presidential election Sunday, when election authorities began releasing results shortly after voting ended. Brazil relies on electronic voting machines, with vote totals transmitted electronically to the Superior Electoral Court for centralized tabulation.
Nearly all of the presidential vote was reported within hours.
With approximately 99.8% counted, conservative Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro had received more than 56 million votes, while incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had roughly 53.7 million.
Neither candidate secured the majority required to win outright, setting up an Oct. 25 runoff.
Bolsonaro, 45, is the son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and has developed close ties with Trump and his political movement. His campaign has emphasized public safety, crime, fiscal restraint and closer relations with the United States.
The speed with which Brazil produced its preliminary results revived a longstanding argument from Trump that American election officials should be able to determine winners more quickly.
The comparison, however, involves election systems operating under substantially different laws.
Brazil uses a nationally standardized electronic voting system in which voters cast ballots directly on machines and results from individual voting locations are electronically transmitted for aggregation.
The United States has no comparable national election system. Elections are administered primarily by states and thousands of county and municipal jurisdictions under different laws governing absentee ballots, mail voting, signature verification, provisional voting, recounts and certification.
California is one of the clearest examples.
The state automatically mails ballots to active registered voters, and ballots returned through the mail can still be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and received as many as seven days afterward.
That means California election officials cannot know the complete number of legally valid ballots on election night because some eligible ballots have not yet arrived.
During California’s official canvass, counties also process provisional ballots, conditional voter-registration ballots and vote-by-mail ballots requiring additional verification.
The California Secretary of State says counties have up to 30 days to complete their official canvass. Officials must verify voter eligibility, compare signatures on mail-ballot envelopes with voter records and give voters an opportunity to resolve certain signature problems before otherwise eligible ballots are rejected.
Election-night totals therefore remain unofficial while that process continues.
California officials stress that the 30-day period is the legal deadline for completing the canvass, not an indication that officials simply stop counting ballots for weeks. Counties periodically update results as additional ballots are processed.
For the November 2026 general election, California also allows mailed ballots postmarked on or before Election Day to arrive through the seventh day afterward.
Pennsylvania operates under a different set of restrictions that can also delay results.
State law generally prevents county election workers from beginning to open and prepare mail ballots for counting until 7 a.m. on Election Day.
The Pennsylvania Department of State says that election workers can be faced with hundreds of thousands or even millions of mail ballots beginning the same morning they are simultaneously operating more than 9,000 polling locations.
Unlike states that allow extensive pre-processing before Election Day, Pennsylvania election officials must perform much of that work after voting has already begun.
Results cannot be reported until polls close.
The state has said that the delay is a consequence of Pennsylvania election law and that changes permitting earlier processing would require legislative action.
Detroit operates under Michigan law, which has changed significantly since the 2020 presidential election.
Michigan now permits many jurisdictions to process and tabulate absentee ballots before Election Day, although results cannot be generated or publicly released until polls close.
Under current Michigan election procedures, cities and townships with populations of at least 5,000 can establish absentee-voter counting boards that process and tabulate ballots during the eight days preceding an election. Other jurisdictions can conduct the work on the Monday immediately before Election Day.
The changes were intended in part to accelerate reporting in elections with large absentee turnout.
Michigan nevertheless notes that high absentee-ballot volume can still cause unofficial counting to continue after polls close.
Trump has repeatedly argued that extended counting periods undermine confidence in elections and has called for changes including tighter restrictions on mail voting, stronger voter-identification requirements and faster reporting.
His latest criticism came less than a month before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
The difference between Brazil and the United States is therefore not simply the number of people voting.
Brazil’s nationally administered electronic system can tabulate votes shortly after polling locations close. The U.S. system includes different state deadlines and verification requirements, including ballots that legally cannot be received or fully processed until after Election Day.
There is no evidence that the length of the counting process by itself establishes that ballots are being fraudulently added or that an election is being “rigged.”
Election officials distinguish between preliminary results, which can often identify a winner on election night, and official certified totals, which typically come later even in races where the outcome is already clear.
Brazilian authorities have similarly defended the integrity of their electronic system. No significant fraud has been established in the system since electronic voting was introduced nationally, and international observers have repeatedly monitored Brazilian elections.
Sunday’s election produced results with unusual speed by American standards.
Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court began publishing totals around 5 p.m. local time as electronic voting-machine reports arrived, and the outcome of the first round became clear that evening.
Bolsonaro finished ahead of Lula but below the threshold needed to win outright.
The two candidates will now return to voters Oct. 25, when the candidate receiving a majority of valid votes will become Brazil’s next president.
Trump’s comments suggest he intends to make the speed and structure of U.S. elections an issue ahead of America’s own November voting.
For Trump, Brazil’s ability to count approximately 125 million votes within hours provided a fresh example for an argument he has made repeatedly: that American voters should not have to wait days or weeks for close races to be resolved.
“The results came out shortly after the vote closed, on the SAME DAY!” Trump wrote.
His criticism now turns attention back to a fundamental difference between the two countries — Brazil designed a centralized electronic system around rapid national tabulation, while American states continue to operate under separate laws that determine when ballots can arrive, when they can be opened and how long election officials have to verify and certify them.
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