Última Instânica, a legal newswire on the UOL portal, reports:

According to major newspapers, starting with the municipal elections of 2008, Brazil's e-voting machines will use the Linux operating system, to be developed by the technical team of the federal elections tribunal the TSE. According to the TSE's IT division, the advantages of using Linux in the electronic voting machine are  standardization, since it is possible to use this OS in all models of the device, as well as transparency, since this is an open mcchanism in which all the source code is available to the public and can be freely audited. Another advantage is zero cost, because no license fees must be paid.

I know of some people who will be celebrating this development, if it pans out.

Brazil seems to be following the EU's lead in this regard, generally speaking. See

• Brazucopenguins Celebrate Europolicy Audit

There have been intimations of the change for some time now. See, for example

• No More Windows CE for Ceará Elections?

This seems to represent a remarkable about face, from an elections authority that last year deployed a flood of publicity in support of the proposition that the system, as it exists, was near-magical in its infallibility. See

• The People Have Faith in Electronic Voting

  More.