RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), which aspires to lead a center option to end the polarization between Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro, favorites for the 2022 elections, suspended on Sunday its voting process to choose its presidential candidate for next year.
Technical issues to collect the votes of affiliates in the country’s several regions through a cell phone app developed to that end forced the cancellation of the party’s internal dispute.
The dispute for the party’s presidential candidate is being waged essentially between the governors of São Paulo, João Doria, and Rio Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite, although ex-Mayor of Manaus, Arthur Virgílio, has also announced his candidacy.
Voting began at 7 AM (Brasília time) on Sunday and was initially scheduled to end at 3 PM. However, the numerous reports of glitches in the app led the party to decide to extend the deadline until 6 PM.
In a statement, the party said that “the voting process in the app is paused due to technical infrastructure issues, which was unable to cope with the demand of voters in the prelims. The votes registered this Sunday are saved and the PSDB is defining, along with candidates, when the process will be resumed,” the text reads.
“The PSDB will set a new date to reopen the voting process so that all affiliates who were unable to vote this Sunday can, safely and calmly, register their vote and complete the selection of our candidate for the 2022 presidential elections,” it continues.
“The votes received both through the app and the electronic ballot boxes this Sunday will be tallied at the end of the voting process. The integrity and security of the system is fully preserved. All votes registered since the opening of voting this Sunday are valid and will be counted,” it adds.