Brazil's Superior Electoral Court declared Lula the winner with 51.76% of valid votes to Bolsonaro's 48.24%, a margin of 4.36 million votes with 99.8% of polling sections counted. Lula, 80, overcame a 47.03% to 45.16% first-round deficit as turnout rose to 80.9% from 79.3% and blank and invalid ballots fell to 3.2% from 4.5%, adding about 10.4 million votes to his first-round tally of 53.9 million while Bolsonaro gained about 3.7 million from 56.1 million. In his victory speech alongside Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, Lula called the outcome a defeat for "denialism and lies" and said Brazil would not be anyone's "backyard."
Bolsonaro refused to concede, saying "it is impossible to recognize the election results" and that his legal team would petition to annul the vote after Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin, Lula's former personal defense lawyer, ordered a nationwide two-hour voting extension until 7 p.m. following separate requests from both campaigns over transit disruptions and storms. Superior Electoral Court President Kassio Nunes Marques said "never, in the history of the TSE, has there been any extension" and that no rule authorized the move, while Fundação Getulio Vargas electoral law professor Fernando Neisser told the New York Times the vote could be annulled only if the margin were narrow and stations stayed open longer in areas favoring one candidate.