Brazilian President Bolsonaro asks OAS to advise against electronic ballot boxes

On Wednesday, September 28, Brazil’s president and candidate for reelection, Jair Bolsonaro (Liberal Party – PL), said he distrusts the auditing of electronic ballot boxes.

He also declared that he recorded his meeting with former Paraguayan Chancellor Rubén Ramírez Lezcano, head of the mission of the OAS (Organization of American States) in observing the electoral process, and asked the incumbent for a report to say that the devices are not auditable.

“A hypothetical case: someone says that there was a fraud. What will you do to say that there was no fraud or that there was a fraud?” Bolsonaro asked.

“Make a preliminary report, signed by your technicians, because, if someone questions the legitimacy [of the election], you will write in advance that the ballot boxes cannot be audited. I asked him for this in the name of democracy, transparency, and the Paraguayan people,” he added.

Hours earlier, the Superior Electoral Court said in a statement that the questioning of the ballot box security by President Jair Bolsonaro’s party is untrue and seeks to “disrupt the electoral process” and undermine the democratic rule of law.

The president of the Court, Alexandre de Moraes, also ordered that the case be investigated in the investigation of fake news, which runs in the Supreme Court.

The reelection candidate raised the tone against the TSE president, who was his main target in the broadcast. He also criticized Moraes for opening an investigation into the leak of a secret investigation into the presidential office.

“Alexandre, it was you who leaked. Be a man, Alexandre, be a man. Everything you blamed the Federal Police for,” he said.

Bolsonaro did not say where he did the live broadcast from but cited “enormous expense” to execute them. The Superior Electoral Court vetoed transmissions by the PL candidate inside the Alvorada Palace.

“I’m hiding and doing a live broadcast, an enormous expense considering what I would spend if I were inside the Alvorada Palace. The candidates for the São Paulo state government, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), and for the São Paulo Senate, Marcos Pontes (PL), participated.

Bolsonaro also said he would determine that the Armed Forces will ensure that voters can vote dressed in green and yellow.

The president cited a publication that attributed to the TSE an alleged ban on voters who go to vote wearing the national soccer team’s shirt.

Bolsonaro, then, got angry: “There will be no election section forbidding green and yellow,” he said. The Court, in fact, received a proposal to ban the prop to clerks.

“What’s up, Alexandre de Moraes? Prohibiting the wearing of a national team jersey? It is too much interference. What are you afraid of? The green and yellow “sea”? Worried about a sea of yellow and green voting and Lula’s name appearing as the winner? Is that it, TSE? Is that it?” he said.

With information from Poder360