A Supreme Court justice in Brazil ordered polls in the presidential run-off to stay open for two more hours on Sunday, minutes after voting had officially ended at 5pm Brasilia time (4am on Monday in Hong Kong).
The order left election officials across China’s biggest trading partner in Latin America unsure whether to reopen polling stations or send their machines to be counted.
Justice Cristiano Zanin, who was President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s lawyer before joining the court in 2023, acted on a complaint from Lula’s campaign about bus shortages in cities run by allies of his rival, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro.
About an hour later he limited the order to stations whose machines had not yet been shut, so that some voters could cast ballots until 7pm while others were sent home.