A 2004 Political Rally in Taquaritinga do Norte, PE

There’s a popular story in northeast Brazil’s political folklore: back in the 1950’s, a powerful Brazilian landowner named Colonel Chico wanted to rig local elections. He distributed ballots that had already been filled out and instructed farm workers to slip them into the voting box. “But, who am I voting for?” one worker asked. “Can’t tell you,” the Colonel replied. “It’s a secret ballot.”
On October 3, millions of Brazilian voters will use electronic voting machines to elect their president, senators, and state representatives. Brazil’s electronic voting machines are called urnas, a reference to a time not so long ago when paper ballots were deposited into urns. The electronic urnas are portable voting machines designed by the Brazilian government and manufactured by Diebold Election Systems. Unlike the United States, where voting procedures vary widely from district to district, Brazil’s procedures are federally standardized by the Tribunal Eleitoral, a branch of the justice department created solely to implement and regulate elections.

In 2004, during the nationwide election for mayors and city council members, I interviewed mayoral candidates, voters, and other election officials from Taquaritinga do Norte, Pernambuco. Taquaritinga is a rural town in northeast Brazil, where our farm is located. 2004 was only the second election that electronic urnas were used in all Brazilian cities.

“God forbid we use a system other than the electronic urna,” said 2004 mayoral candidate José Pereira Coelho. Coelho, the son of a shoemaker, was running for reelection in Taquaritinga do Norte, In 2000, the first year electronic urnas were used in local elections, Coelho won an upset victory against the PFL party, which had dominated local politics for 112 years. “The elections here are very, very close,” Coelho said while eating a plate of chicken and rice at a supporter’s home. “The electronic urna is the security that all Brazilians needed to guarantee our votes.”

The former mayor, Janio Arruda da Silva, once again Coelho’s opponent in the 2004 election, had no complaints about the urnas either. “The electoral process here is lengthy,” Silva said. “The campaign itself lasts many months. But a positive point is the electronic urna, which gives results instantly.” Silva looked at his cell phone and let it ring while his wife rushed to answer their home phone. Their house’s shutters were drawn and it’s front gate closed. “If people knew I was home,” Silva said quietly. “There would be a line outside my door.”

Before the 2004 mayoral election, each candidate had a loyal following. Coelho’s supporters, backed by a coalition of ten different political parties, are known as the calabars, or “traitors,” a reference to toppling the former, 112-year-old regime. Silva’s supporters call themselves the boca pretas, or “black mouths,” a name which comes from a local superstition that a catching grasshopper with a black mouth means good luck. The candidates also had official campaign colors—Coelho’s was red, Silva’s was blue. The municipality of Taquaritinga do Norte covers over 450 square kilometers of land with voters scattered across small townships and farms. The majority of Silva and Coelho’s 2004 constituency was made up of farmers, day laborers, and textile workers earning the Brazilian minimum wage which, at the time, was approximately $85 dollars a month. Many constituents could not read or write. Most did not have phone lines and had never accessed the internet. (In 2010 this has changed significantly thanks to inexpensive cell phones and internet cafés.)

Voting is mandatory in Brazil. All citizens between the ages of 18 and 70 must register with the Tribunal Eleitoral and appear at the voting center on Election Day. If a citizen is continuously absent from the voting process, that person cannot hold public office, cannot enter competitions to become teachers, judges or district attorneys, cannot attend a federal university, and cannot take out a bank loan in a federal institution. The law permits that, once in the voting booth, you may annul your vote or vote in blank. “A blank vote says you prefer not to vote. A null vote says you don’t like either candidate,” explained Taquaritinga’s chief judge, the Honorable Lauro Pedro dos Santos Murilo, a young man in his mid-thirties. “Those are two very different things.” His voice echoed in his chambers, a massive white room with a desk, a crucifix, and a view of Taquaritinga’s mountainside. “Whether the vote is optional or obligatory, what’s certain is that the vote ensures the growth of democratic institutions.”

With electronic voting machines, voters simply punch their chosen candidate’s numeric code into the machine’s keypad. The candidate’s picture then appears on the screen and the voter is asked to confirm their vote. Before electronic voting, Taquaritinga’s citizens voted on paper ballots signed by the local judge and president of the voting commission. The votes were collected and counted by a voting commission comprised of the local judge and voting officials approved by both parties. This led to human error—if a barely literate person drew an “x” between two candidates’ names, the voting commission had to interpret that voter’s intention. There were also instances of fraud.

“There were instances where the canvas and leather urns arrived with ballots already inside,” said Judge Santos Murilo. With the electronic urnas, this kind of fraud is more difficult to achieve. Each citizen has a voting identification number, called a Titulo de Eleitor. Voters present poll workers with their federal voting number and a photo ID. Poll workers input the voting number into the polling place’s computer system, which recognizes the voter from a national database. Only then is the voter is allowed to vote on the electronic machine. This is not only a way to check a voter’s identity, but also to make sure they only vote once. Ten minutes after the last citizen’s vote is registered with an electronic urna, the results for that particular machine are calculated and the machine prints a paper tally of votes. Copies of the tallies are posted on the polling place door, given to each candidate, and to the town’s judge, who is the official representative of the federal Tribunal Eleitoral. Voting data is also stored in an encrypted hard drive in the voting machine. This hard drive is only readable on computers hooked into the federal elections system database.

At the end of Election Day, the voting machine hard drives are placed in a car from the federal elections bureau and taken to the local courthouse. Candidates, poll workers, federal officials, and voters accompany the car in an informal parade to the courthouse. There, everyone will hear the official tally of all of the machines.

“Today, we [judges] that lead the Federal Elections Justice System have no doubt of the results of what is in the electronic voting machine,” said judge Santos Murilo in 2004. “It represents what the voter chose. What needs perfecting now is the phase before the act of voting—the campaign.”

In order to reach voters in the 2004 mayoral election, Coelho and Silva hired cars with loudspeakers strapped to their roofs. The vehicles circled the city limits from 8 AM to 10 PM each day (this time frame is mandated by federal law) playing campaign songs. On weekends, both campaigns organized rallies where the candidates on the blue and red tickets explained their platforms. The speeches were followed by music and dancing. Candidates had to hire the bands and provide transportation for rural supporters to go to and from the rallies. In 2004, the least expensive and most effective campaign method was personal contact. Silva and Coelho made regular visits to voters’ homes and attended community events. Both men attended Catholic mass, sitting on opposite sides of the church. And when a prominent local merchant died half-way through the campaign season, both candidates appeared at the funeral wearing freshly-ironed shirts, Silva’s blue, Coelho’s red.

There is another aspect to campaigning, one that existed long before the electronic urnas, and still exists despite them. “The politics of favors is a politics of exchange, or bartering,” said 2004 mayoral candidate Janio Arruda da Silva. “A favor is done in exchange for a vote. This still exists.” (When we talked about this aspect of the campaign, both candidates began to use vague language, without specific names or personal pronouns.) “For example,” da Silva continued, “someone asks the candidate for…to give them an operation for cataracts. The candidate arranges this surgery in a public hospital. And the person who received the surgery…they feel pressured to give their vote in return. For me, it is more practical to hire a doctor who can operate on many citizens, for the common good.”

One 2004 voter, who did not want to be named, said a local candidate gave her gas money to help her take her autistic son get to the doctor in Caruaru, a large city 57 km away. A female city council candidate allowed one voter to live in her mother’s house in Recife, the state’s capital, while the voter underwent thyroid treatments. Individual favors seem to be a part of the political process in Brazil. “Its part of the culture,” said Antônio de Padua, the president of Taquaritinga’s PFL party. “It happens everywhere.”

With electronic urnas, candidates have no guarantees that their favors will win them votes. Voters may receive personal favors from both parties, and then enter whichever candidate’s numeric code they choose at the polls. Brazil has alternated between military dictatorships and democracy since the fall of the imperial monarchy in 1889, and has tried to combat election fraud through out its electoral history, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Fifty years ago, in rural voting districts like Colonel Chico’s, voters weren’t given a choice. People did not matter but their ballots did. Today, things are different. While the culture of personal favors is not ideal or just, it illustrates a marked shift in the role of the voter in Brazilian elections. Voters must be courted now, and given tangible evidence of a candidate’s intentions before they head to the polling place. It’s not ideal, but it is an evolution.

“Just as definitive death is the ultimate fruit of the will to forget, so the will to remember will perpetuate our lives.”

José Saramago passed away yesterday, according to a post on his foundation’s website.

Here’s the first portion of an autobiography written when Saramago received the Nobel Prize in 1998:
“I was born in a family of landless peasants, in Azinhaga, a small village in the province of Ribatejo, on the right bank of the Almonda River, around a hundred kilometres north-east of Lisbon. My parents were José de Sousa and Maria da Piedade. José de Sousa would have been my own name had not the Registrar, on his own inititiave added the nickname by which my father’s family was known in the village: Saramago. I should add that saramago is a wild herbaceous plant, whose leaves in those times served at need as nourishment for the poor. Not until the age of seven, when I had to present an identification document at primary school, was it realised that my full name was José de Sousa Saramago…”

O escritor José Saramago morreu na sexta-feira, aos 87 anos. A escritora Nélida Piñon definiu como “imortal” e “eterno” o escritor português. Saramago sempre viverá nos seus livros.

Maria, Tamires, Frederic, James, me & Yacob on the farm

In preparation for an essay I wrote for an upcoming edition of Real Simple Magazine, photographer Frédéric Lagrange and his assistant Yacob Vincent visited the farm to shoot some photos of all of us. It was a great shoot, and the dogs (especially Lorenzo) were top-notch models. Lorenzo (who literally trembles and then hides in the bushes when we tell him it’s bath time) decided to swim in our pond (???!!!) for Frédéric. He performed some water ballet, waving his paws and flicking his tail, as if this kind of thing was perfectly normal.

Many thanks to Real Simple, Fréderic, and Yacob for the photos. I hope they turn out well!

My friend Aryn’s amazing collection of short stories was released on Wednesday.

Aryn Kyle, whose first novel was hailed as “reason for readers to rejoice” (USA TODAY) turns her gift for storytelling to the lives of girls and women in this spectacular collection. In “Nine,” a young girl given to exaggeration escapes a humiliating ninth birthday celebration with the help of her father’s new girlfriend. The dubious benefits of sleeping with one’s boss are revealed when a bookstore manager defends an employee from an irate customer in the hilarious “Sex Scenes from a Chain Bookstore.” A raid on a neighbor’s meth lab strengthens the unlikely friendship between a solitary woman and the goth teenage girl who lives in the apartment below her in “Boys and Girls Like You and Me.” And in a notable exception to the rule, “Captain’s Club” features a boy whose devotion to a lonely woman transforms his cruise vacation.
In moments electric with sudden harmony or ruthless indifference, the girls and women in this collection provoke, beguile, entertain, and reveal a poignant and searingly accurate portrait of the female heart. With her keen eye for character, her humor, and her uncanny grasp of the loneliness, selfishness, and longing that permeate the female experience, Kyle has secured her reputation as a major young talent.

The Baroness / A Baronesa

English
I got some really great news this week. A Brazilian designer named Adriana Gontijo liked The Seamstress so much she used the book as the inspiration for her 2010 Fall/Winter clothing collection. Gontijo’s label, A Rosa Vermelha, produces women’s clothes made from sustainable and vintage fabrics. Adriana has named her dresses and blouses after characters in the book. The Baroness dress has a youthful elegance, like the Baroness herself. The Lindalva dress is fun and spirited, just like the character. I was really happy and honored to know that another artist has taken inspiration from the people and places in the book. I actually like fashion, even though I never get to wear spiffy clothes on the farm. To see all of Adriana’s designs, visit A Rosa Vermelha’s blog. (But I’ve included pictures here, of course!)

Vestido Lindalva / The Lindalva

Blusa Degas / The Degas Blouse

Blusa Coelho / Coelho Blouse

While browsing this other blog I like called Information is Beautiful, I came across the work of graphic artist Stefanie Posavec. According to David McCandless, the blog’s author and designer, Posavec’s work “is concerned with the unveiling of things unseen.” One of Posavec’s projects: to visualize the structure of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. Being an amateur book diagrammer myself, I was intrigued. [Warning: Nerd Alert] After I read any novel I particularly like, I try to diagram its structure, making charts or graphs or weird timelines. These drawings are basically unintelligible to anyone but me, of course. When I’m stuck on my own work I do the same kind of drawing, hoping that a visual representation will help me fix whatever it is in the structure that’s baffling me. Sometimes it works. Often it doesn’t, but a) it’s fun to do and b) doing it makes me feel like I’m actually working. So when I saw Posavec’s diagrams of On the Road, I immediately got a huge crush on her. I mean, these illustrations are BEAUTIFUL. In a Literary Organism, she makes lines divide into chapters, blooms into paragraphs, sprouts are sentences. All are color-coded according to the book’s key themes. There are other graphic representations of the book’s rhythms, sentence structures, and word usage.

Here’s a blog with high-res images of Posavec’s work. And here’s her website.

Para vocês que falam Português, tem uma ótima entrevista com o escritor Carlos Herculano Lopes. Ele escreveu vários livros, entre eles: A Dança dos Cabelos, Memórias da Sede, Sombras de Julho, e Coração aos Pulos. O seu romance mais recente, O Vestido (Romance. São Paulo: Geração Editorial, 2004), baseado no poema “Caso do Vestido” de Carlos Drummond de Andrade, foi adaptado para o filme de Paulo Thiago em 2004.

Eu tive a oportunidade de falar com o Carlos alguns meses atrás, quando ele me entrevistou para um artigo no jornal Estado de Minas. Veja aqui a entrevista com Carlos no YouTube.

E, porque não posso resistir, aqui está o Caso do Vestido do outro Carlos!

The current issue of The Sun features photos from Kristin Capp, a really talented photographer who took a series of photos in Itaparica, Brazil. See more of her work– including photos of Itaparica, Salvador, and Brasilia– here.
Abraços,
Frances

My dear friend Deanna Fei’s debut novel will be released this week, April 1, by the Penguin Press! It is an incredible book. Here are the great reviews it’s gotten so far:

Advance Praise for A Thread of Sky

Lin Yulan, a revolutionary and leader of the Chinese feminist movement, reluctantly returns to her homeland after a self-imposed exile for a guided tour of “the new China” with her two daughters and three granddaughters in an effort for the nearly estranged women to reconnect. Each woman arrives in China with her own agenda, and each discovers that some shameful secrets are simply too heavy to bear alone. This powerful, intricately woven first novel is a meditation on grief and recovery, strength and vulnerability, and the urgency to leave one’s mark on the world. A very promising debut.
- INDIEBOUND

A Thread of Sky is a lyrical journey through the heart of contemporary China, and the family of women who make the pilgrimage across these pages are as complicated, broad-ranging, and fascinating as the country itself. Deanna Fei is one to watch.
-ANN PATCHETT

A remarkable debut by a gifted young novelist… A wonderful book!
-ANITA SHREVE

This had me at the first page. Fei’s debut novel is both intensely enjoyable and, I think, important. This novel charts the cost of that famous Asian silence, as a family takes in the price of it across several generations. But it is also an intimate portrait of that famous ‘new China,’ as much of a surprise to Chinese Americans as it is to the rest of us. Truly a book for our times.
- ALEXANDER CHEE

Fei stakes a claim in Amy Tan territory with this satisfying tale.
-BOOKLIST

Deanna Fei writes gracefully and with powerful insight and feeling about love and loss, homelands and promised lands, and the various roles of women in family and society. The reader follows her passionately searching characters to China with a brimming heart, and with admiration for a first novelist so full of promise.
-SIGRID NUNEZ

With its mother-daughter conflicts, a feminist message, and an exploration of Chinese roots, this novel will appeal to fans of Amy Tan as well as readers who generally enjoy… Julia Alvarez, Gish Jen, and Gus Lee.
-LIBRARY JOURNAL

A dazzling, heart-pulling debut. With gorgeous lyricism and rare power, Deanna Fei maps an intricate constellation of loss and love that illuminates the lives of three generations of women. The novel is a startling achievement, braided with history and hope and deep empathy, and it introduces readers to one of the most gifted and captivating storytellers of her generation.
-BRET ANTHONY JOHNSTON