Bolsonaro considers withdrawing from Brazil’s 2022 election unless printed ballots are passed

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – President Jair Bolsonaro on Monday, July 19, implied that he may give up his candidacy for reelection in 2022 unless Congress passes the vote printing system in electronic ballot boxes.

In a now regular discourse, the president told supporters outside the Alvorada Palace that “elections without auditable ballots are not elections, they are fraud.”

Bolsonaro further said that electronic ballot box votes will be audited within the TSE (Superior Electoral Court), “in a secret way” and “by the same people who released Lula [ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva] and made him eligible.”

In fact, all voting stages are auditable and can be monitored by members of the country’s political parties, according to the TSE. The reinstatement of printed ballots was tested in 2002 and discarded due to several flaws in the process.

“Look, I’ll hand over the sash to anyone if I run for election…,” Bolsonaro hinted. “Now, to participate in this election with this electronic ballot box…,” he added, hinting that he might not run for reelection if there is no change.

The statement is a reversal of what he said on July 9, when he declared that if votes were not printed there might not be an election in 2022.

The Chief Executive went further in his assessment. According to him, TSE president Luís Roberto Barroso interfered in the Legislative Branch to bar the printed ballot in Congress.

“Barroso went to Congress to hold a meeting with legislators. And when the meeting was over, what did several leaders do? They changed legislators to vote against the opinion of deputy Filipe Barros [PSL-PR], the bill’s rapporteur,” he said.

According to Bolsonaro, electronic ballot boxes are technologically outdated and the claim that the TSE system is tamper-proof is false.

Bolsonaro was hospitalized between Wednesday, July 14, and Sunday, July 18, to be treated for an intestinal obstruction. “It had nothing to do with the motorcycle rally. The problem started in Porto Alegre [RS], but it was a barbecue. I stuffed myself,” he explained.

Source: R7