This article turns to the electoral practices during the Brazilian First Republic (1891-1930). The starting point is a critique of the historiography's malaise with the consensual notion of rampant electoral fraud. Through an in-depth examination of the complaints submitted to the Lower House by defeated candidates, it is possibly to observe that fraud allegations were a reflex of a more complex process and mainly the product of the competition unleashed at the subnational level among rival state factions. The analysis of this rich source reveals that the main incentive to enter political competition in the 1900s was indeed control of the electoral administrative apparatus, undoubtedly the main force behind the conditioning of electoral results.
Brazilian First Republic; representative system; political competition; electoral fraud; elections
