 Elections in Brazil are just over one week away. On October 2, over 156 million people will vote in the first round of elections. This is the largest electorate in Brazil's history. They will be electing the next president of the country, along with 27 state and federal governors, 27 senators, and 513 federal, state, and district deputies. How does voting work? In Brazil, a computerized voting system is used. This system considerably eliminates human intervention in the counting and tallying procedures and guarantees greater security and transparency in the electoral process. The computerized voting system also means that results are available in record time. The superior electoral court, TSE, will begin counting as soon as the polling stations close at 5 p.m. local time and the process is usually completed in two hours. What are the polls saying? There are currently nine candidates contesting in the presidential race, but all major polls have indicated two frontrunners. Former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party of Brazil is leading in all major voter-intention polls with 45 to 47 percent. Some polls have even predicted that the former president will win in the first round. After Lula, incumbent far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, candidate of the Liberal Party, is polling at around 31 percent. Ciro Gomez of the Democratic Labor Party is polling at 7 percent. Simón Tabet of the Brazilian Democratic Movement is at 5 percent. And Zoraya Thorike of União Brasil is at 1 percent. The other candidates did not reach 1 percent. If the leading candidate does not receive more than 50 percent of the total valid votes in the first round, a second round will be held on October 30th. Let's take a look at the leading candidates. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is running for president on the ticket of the left-leaning Workers' Party of Brazil. Lula served as president of Brazil from 2003 to 2011. He reached a record high 87 percent approval rating in 2010 due to his robust public policies focused on lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty and hunger and amplifying access to higher education, health care and employment. Lula himself hailed from a humble beginning in Brazil's northeast due to drought and poverty, he moved with his family to São Paulo when he was 7 years old. He began to work at the age of 8 and did not complete primary school education. In 1966, in the midst of the military dictatorship in Brazil, he became a metal worker and started his trade union militancy. By 1975, Lula was elected as president of the union of over 100,000 workers with 92 percent of the votes. In February 1980, he co-founded the Workers' Party and continued to lead militant workers' struggles including a 41-day strike with over 300,000 workers. He played a key role in the struggle for democracy and helped rewrite the country's constitution. In 1986, after several presidential campaigns, he was victorious in 2002. With a coup against his successor, Dumar Rousseff, in 2016, the lawfare campaign against the Workers' Party intensified. Lula was wrongly accused and convicted of corruption charges and went to jail for 580 days. This stopped him from contesting the 2018 presidential elections and paved the way for the victory of Jair Bolsonaro and made a storm of fake news and misinformation. Lula has since been exonerated of all charges. Leading up to these elections, Lula has managed to galvanize even more support across broad sectors of society, from militant social movements to bankers, promising to bring hope back to Brazil. Some 10 points behind Lula is incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, who is the candidate of the Liberal Party. Bolsonaro served as a federal deputy for nearly 30 years, but only two of his bills became law. He became known for his explosive and hateful statements about LGBTQI people, women, black people, poor people, left and progressive activists, and human rights offenders. During his time as president, 149 impeachment requests were presented to Brazil's Chamber of Deputies. The impeachment requests were related to his disastrous management of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the spreading of fake news about medication, the blocking of vaccine approval, and lack of isolation measures, as well as for his anti-democratic statements and attacks on other branches of power, among others. Bolsonaro's term was also characterized by attacks on the environment, including the authorization of hundreds of pesticides and a 52.9 increase in the deforestation of the Amazon. Bolsonaro has also harshly criticized the country's electronic voting system, calling for a return to paper ballots and suggesting that he won't respect the results otherwise. The Supreme Federal Court is another one of his targets, and he has called it for it to be purged and even suggested that the armed forces should intervene. His incendiary discourse has created an uneasiness around the electoral process, and many analysts have suspected that he might attempt a military coup if he loses. These elections are already taking place amid an acute political, economic, and social crisis in the country, which began in 2015 and has worsened in recent years. This is seen on a structural level with deindustrialization, the decline in exportation of raw materials, and privatization of lucrative state enterprises. The currency has also reached a record low rate. The impacts on the Brazilian people have been grave. Last year, 33 million Brazilians were reported to be hungry, the highest number recorded in the last 30 years, and nearly 125 million people are suffering from some level of food insecurity. There has also been a dramatic increase in homelessness, unemployment, and prices of basic commodities. The over 685,000 deaths from COVID-19 continue to cast a shadow on the lives of millions. With the two very different projects for the country on the slate, the October 2nd elections will certainly be decisive. Stay tuned to all the latest updates on Brazil's elections with People's Dispatch.