The party of the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, requested this Tuesday the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) to cancel the votes of more than 280,000 electronic ballot boxes, arguing that “failures” would have prevented his re-election against Lula.
“We demand the invalidation of the votes of the electronic ballot boxes, which have revealed insurmountable defects, and draw the legal consequences on the results of the second round”, on October 30, can be read in the complaint filed by the Liberal Party (PL).
This formation, which obtained the largest number of deputies and senators at the end of the legislative elections, considers that the “malfunctioning” of five models of ballot boxes “puts into question the transparency of the electoral process.”
More than 280,000 ballot boxes in question
According to the PL lawyer, more than 280,000 electronic ballot boxes used during the vote would be one of the five models in question. According to the party count, the annulment of the votes from these ballot boxes would give victory to Jair Bolsonaro with 51.05% of the votes, which is practically the opposite of the official result (50.9% for Lula, 49.1 % for outgoing president) .
The president of the TSE, Alexandre de Moraes, responded to the complaint, explaining that these ballot box models were used not only in the second round, but also in the first, on October 2. He asks, therefore, that the complaint “refer to the two towers”, on pain of being rejected without being analyzed.
But an annulment of part of the votes obtained on October 2 would also have an impact on the legislative elections, which were held on the same day, in the same ballot boxes. This could jeopardize the election of many PL parliamentarians.
Jair Bolsonaro has practically disappeared from public life for more than three weeks, after the announcement of his defeat against former left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010).
He only came out of his silence two days later, without explicitly acknowledging his defeat, and evoking the “feeling of injustice” of his followers who demonstrated in front of the barracks to demand military intervention.
Source: BFM TV
