Talk:1906 Brazilian presidential election

Turnout figure

@Torimem: Many thanks for expanding the article. However, regarding the turnout figure (33.17%), the source for that is not consistent with the results table, as it uses a figure of 294,189 votes cast (and an electorate of 886,665). However, the number of votes cast according to the results table sources is 294,401 (which would give a turnout of 33.20%, assuming there were no invalid votes).

The source itself says that the number of registered voters is "calculated based on the average of data available for the years 1905 and 1907", so I'm not sure is actually a legitimate number? Perhaps it might be better to remove an exact figure, and add something like "Turnout was estimated to be around 33%." or something similar? Cheers, Number 57 21:19, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Number 57. I'm aware of this issue, so it's good that you have commented on it. This election has some problems, which I'll list below:

• As you've already noticed, the sources are not consistent, some say 288,285 votes for Pena while others say 282,076 or 282,947 (the ones I've added to the article). Polo Ricci's almanac says the following on p. 117-118:

"Tables 8.1 to 8.13 show the results of the elections for president and vice president of the Republic organized by state. Such statistics were collected from partial vote counting reports published in the National Congress Gazette" [...]

"Furthermore, the final vote of the candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency of the Republic is in the public domain, which can be found both in the famous book O voto no Brasil, by Walter Costa Porto, and in the Electoral Bulletin of the Superior Electoral Court of November 1951, year I, n. 4. Therefore, we believe it is advisable to collect and publicize, for scholars and other interested parties, the final votes obtained by the candidates in each state. When searching for such information, however, we noticed the absence, in official sources, of the final result approved by the National Congress. We then decided to collect the information considering the final reports presented by the Auxiliary Commissions responsible for determining the electoral results in the states. Such reports were voted on in plenary and, therefore, were subject to changes due to amendments presented by congressmen. This explains possible discrepancies in the sum of the final votes when compared with what was published in other works".

• The article makes it seem that there was more than one candidate, which was not the case. But this is just the result of the lack of content.
• As for the turnout figure, I think we can keep it, but add an explanatory note, detailing how the figure was reached.

What do you think? Torimem (talk) 22:03, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed response! Interesting that Polo Ricci's work has such a large discrepancy (it has the total votes cast in the presidential vote at 332,396). Should we use this source for the results table and infobox figures, given that it seems to be legitimised by the TSE having it on their own website? However, this also makes the 33% turnout figure seem completely unreliable, as it is based on a vote total way below the figure given by Polo Ricci.

I wasn't sure what you meant about "the article makes it seem that there was more than one candidate" – were de Moraes and Pereira the only official candidates and the rest were write-ins? Cheers, Number 57 11:23, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

@Number 57, I'm inclined to think we should not use Ricci's figures for the results and infobox due to the reason they stated and I pasted above. Claudia Viscardi's work is entirely based on the figures she got, and some of the conclusions she draws stem from it (the turnout being one of them), this is the main issue we have to deal with. I say this because I'm planning to expand this article (I'm already working on the article about Afonso Pena), but all the sources I could find that have significant information on the election (such as Viscardi's article) have different numbers, and I admit that I'm not sure on how to proceed from here.

As for your question, what I meant is that Afonso Pena and Nilo Peçanha were the only candidates in the election, literally. Lauro Sodré was not running for president, nor was anyone else, but since voters were allowed to cast votes for anyone, even non candidates, some politicians like Sodré and Ruy Barbosa got some votes. Torimem (talk) 03:48, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

If every source has different figures, instead of having a results table with what appear to be definitive numbers in them, perhaps we should replace the table with text along the lines of:

Afonso Pena was the only formal candidate for the presidency and received around 98% of the votes cast, with figures ranging from 2XX,XXX to 2XX,XXX recorded in different sources. There were also write-in votes votes for 104 candidates, the most popular of whom was Lauro Sodré, who received between 4,XXX and 4,XXX votes. Others included Ruy Barbosa (around 200 votes), Campos Sales (around 95 votes) and Severino Vieira (around 80 votes). Voter turnout was 33% of the 886,665 registered voters.

Then in the infobox we can avoid using the vote figure and just have the percentages (without decimal places). Number 57 17:06, 7 February 2024 (UTC)