Parliamentary elections were held in the Empire of Brazil on 31 October 1881 to elect members of the 18th legislature of the Chamber of Deputies. These were the first direct elections held in the country after the Saraiva Law was enacted (Law No. 3,029 of 9 January 1881). The Liberal Party won 74 seats while the Conservative Party won 48. The chamber was later dissolved on 3 September 1884.
On 15 December 1875 emperor Pedro II of Brazil called the liberal João Lins Cansanção, the Viscount of Sinimbu, to head a new cabinet with the goal of establishing direct voting in the country. The expected reform was amidst the country's electoral, military, religious, and slavery crises. Sinimbu's bill proposed raising the minimum yearly income threshold to vote from 200 to 400 thousand réis and also prohibiting illiterates to vote. The bill, a constitutional reform, was approved in the Chamber of Deputies on 9 June 1879, but was rejected in the Senate on 12 November, and thus Sinimbu's cabinet fell. The new prime minister who followed, also a liberal, José Antônio Saraiva, took over on 28 March 1880 and managed to approve his own bill, the Saraiva Law, on 9 January 1881. The law introduced direct voting in the country, but prohibited the illiterate to vote, and so the number of electors in the country fell from over a million, or about 13% of the country's free adult population, to just over 100,000, less than 1% of the same group.
Alagoas
Amazonas
Bahia
Ceará
EspÃÂrito Santo
Goiás
Maranhão
Mato Grosso
Minas Gerais
Neutral Municipality and Rio de Janeiro
Pará
ParaÃÂba
Paraná
Pernambuco
PiauÃÂ
Rio Grande do Norte
Rio Grande do Sul
Santa Catarina
São Paulo
Sergipe