Cristiano Zanin ordered voting in Brazil to continue until 19h on 25/10/2026, extending the original 17h deadline by two hours nationwide after complaints about problems transporting voters. The order said the TSE would have to carry it out.
The move came after Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's campaign asked for more time, saying some voters had been blocked from reaching the polls and urging people not to give up on voting. Lula said his side wanted the electoral process extended so those prevented from voting could still cast ballots, and he also asked that public transportation keep running with free fares and full fleets until at least two hours after polls closed.
Zanin said the measure was justified by the gravity of the facts reported and the urgency of the case. In his decision, he said the reports had reached the Supreme Court at 16:32:49 and that the closing time for receiving votes should be pushed to 19h, Brasília time, in every section in Brazil.
The extension was not a routine administrative adjustment. The Ministério Público Eleitoral argued that the legal voting schedule should stay unchanged, even if the complaints were serious, and said the reported facts should instead be investigated and punished in the proper channels. At the same time, the TSE president, Nunes Marques, had not yet ruled on the related request when the report was published, leaving the practical handling of the order in motion while voting was still underway.
The dispute also widened beyond Lula's request. The campaign of Flávio Bolsonaro separately asked the TSE for more voting time in five states: São Paulo, Santa Catarina, Paraná, Minas Gerais, and Rio Grande do Sul. Lula's campaign had also been raising complaints since the morning about voter transportation problems in places such as Salvador, Bahia, arguing that the issue was affecting enough people to justify a broader fix. The next question is not whether the deadline changed — it already did — but how the TSE would apply the order while the count was moving forward and the complaints that triggered it were still being sorted out.
