Brazil’s electoral court chief said on October 4 that international observers found no indication of foreign interference during their election mission. Kassio Nunes Marques, president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), spoke in Brasília after the first round of the country’s 2026 general election.

He said the observers’ reports described the voting as transparent and normal. Their assessment covered the period of their observation mission.

Observers report access to election information

According to Nunes Marques, the observers had access to the information they needed to assess the election. They also had opportunities to learn about Brazil’s electoral system.

He said their reports recorded confidence in the system among civil-society institutions, government bodies and political parties. Those findings reflected meetings the observers held with representatives of those groups.

Nunes Marques also said the observers had not reported serious incidents by the time of his remarks. His account covered electronic voting machines, voter identification and transport.

Presidential results stop updating

The court’s account of the election also addressed an interruption in the publication of presidential results. Updates stopped around 7 p.m., while votes from the first round were being counted.

Reports differed slightly on the timing, describing a pause of about an hour or more than an hour. Updates resumed around 8 p.m., with one Brazilian news outlet giving the time as 8:08 p.m.

That outlet reported that other election results continued updating during the presidential pause. These included races for state governments, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.

Court attributes delay to data congestion

Nunes Marques said the court’s technology team identified an unusually high flow of data. He attributed the delay to congestion in the system handling that information.

The team activated a security protocol when it detected the problem, he said. Whether another technical problem had caused the congestion remained unclear.

The TSE separately attributed the delay to the size of data sets sent by regional electoral courts. It said long queues at polling stations had not caused the slowdown in the count.

The court said results are updated as voting-machine records arrive and are processed by the electoral authorities.