Almost 90% of federal representatives seek reelection this year
At least 451 of the current 513 federal representatives will seek reelection on October 2, when the first round of this year's elections will take place. The number, which represents about 88 percent of the current legislature, is the second highest in the last 20 years, below only the result of 2006, when 491 politicians with seats in the House of Representatives sought the renewal of the mandate for another four years.
In the 2018 general elections, 413 federal representatives ran for reelection, and 289 had enough votes to join the current legislature, the House of Representatives reported.
According to information from the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), the 451 federal representatives seeking reelection represent less than 4.5 percent of the 10,482 candidates for the House of Representatives. Among them, there are only 62 female representatives.
Federal, state, and district representatives are chosen according to the so-called proportional system, in which not the candidates with the most votes are necessarily elected, but party or coalition representatives who receive the most votes, up to the limit of the number of seats obtained by their political group, according to the calculation of the party quotient (number of valid votes obtained by the party/coalition divided by the electoral quotient). The electoral quotient is obtained, at each election by dividing the number of valid votes by the number of vacancies, which in the case of the House of representatives is 513.
