Brazil's Election Result Is Contested After a Last-Minute Voting Extension
With 100% of the vote counted, Brazil's electoral court announced that Lula had a lead of nearly 4.4 million votes over opponent Flávio Bolsonaro, giving him 51.8% of the total. Flávio Bolsonaro quickly refused to concede and asked for the election results to be annulled after an evening of chaos at some polling places that followed a last-minute decision to extend voting by two hours.
The electoral court's announcement ended an evening of confusion after Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin ruled three minutes before the scheduled end of voting to keep polls open two more hours, following requests by both candidates.
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The annulment request is the weaker part of the story: Bolsonaro refused to concede and asked for the result to be annulled, but it is not clear the complaint could meet the threshold to annul the results.
Weak challenge or not, the outcome itself is unusual: it is the first time since Brazil's military dictatorship ended in 1985 that the second-highest vote-getter in the first round won the presidency.