Sunday's runoff election in Brazil is democracy in action. It will also cause serious heartburn in the White House. That will be good.

Olé, Olé, Olá, Lula! Lula!

Brazil: Notes on a Democracy Rising

Now it’s October 6. I’m back in the U.S., but it’s election day in Brazil. A huge day in the history of this hemisphere. Brazil is pretty good at voting; they could teach us a lot. They have multiple parties, free TV time, voting with party symbols, and they vote on Sundays. Much of the voting takes place in schools, but they use every classroom, not just the gym; and different neighborhoods vote in separate classrooms, which speeds up the process considerably.

Brazil also has “mandatory” voting, which means that turnout is high. In 2000, 280 million Americans cast about 105 million votes. In 2002, 175 million Brazilians cast 94 million votes. In a country with more than 100 million fewer people, and in a serious multiple-party race (the fourth- place finisher gets more than 10 million votes), Lula carries 25 out of 28 states, takes more than 46 percent nationwide and collects 39 million votes, almost as many as George W. Bush got.

And they seem to have counted them all.
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Lula Takes Huge Lead Into Last Days of Brazil Race

Brazil's presidential hopeful Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday held a rock-solid lead that was expected to weather a final television debate against rival Jose Serra and carry him to victory in Sunday's election.
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thanks to Politics in the Zeros