Brazilian authorities defend reliability of electoral system to foreign observers

Brazilian authorities yesterday highlighted the electronic voting system’s reliability and transparency at a Brasilia seminar attended by international election observers.

The system has been used in the country since 1996, Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) confirmed.

The event, held at a hotel in the Brazilian capital, was attended by TSE President Alexandre de Moraes, Supreme Federal Court (STF) President Rosa Weber, and Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco.

Moraes reiterated at the seminar that the Oct. 2 elections are a date of “safe and transparent exercise of democratic options.”

“Electoral justice will ensure that the exercise of democracy is done in a safe, transparent, and reliable manner,” he said.

“With the TSE in collaboration with the regional courts, with more than 2,600 electoral judges, the same number of electoral prosecutors, 22,000 employees, and with more than 1.8 million table heads,” he stressed.

Moraes said that electoral justice will play a crucial role in guaranteeing the sovereignty of the popular will and that the Brazilian electronic ballot box is a source of national pride.

He also pointed out that Brazil is one of the largest democracies in the world, where election results are counted and published the same day.

Weber said that electoral justice is an “asset of the Brazilian people” and that the Brazilian electoral system is “reliable, secure and verifiable and can serve as a model for all.”

During his participation in the event, Weber emphasized confidence in electoral justice, pointing out that electronic ballot boxes are the “best example” of the collective work of TSE members.

Pacheco told the seminar that electronic ballot boxes are “simple, intuitive, and accessible to all,” and “reliable, secure, and transparent.”

Pacheco considered that the security barriers and the forms of election monitoring ensure the security of the process.

He also defended the performance of the Electoral High Court, which for 90 years has acted as a “trustee of balance” to balance the disputes.

Brazilians are called to go to the polls next Sunday to elect the president, vice president, governors, deputies, and senators.

If no candidate receives more than half of the valid votes on the first day, a runoff election is scheduled for the president and governors on Oct. 30.

SECURITY OF SYSTEM QUESTIONED

Bolsonaro and other members of the Brazilian Executive have questioned the security of the electronic ballot boxes, assuring that they are unreliable and that there is a risk of “electoral fraud”.

Some analysts assure that the strategy of the Brazilian president is to question the legitimacy of the electoral result at a time when the polls give his opponent, Lula da Silva, the victory in the elections.

At the same time, it is hard to understand that institutions opposing Bolsonaro, such as the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE), insist on a “bulletproof integrity” of machines widely known to be corruptible but refuse to establish any auditable parameter that would allow recounting votes, like a printed receipt on paper for each vote registered electronically.