Brazil Elections: Jair Bolsonaro Pulls a Donald Trump and Contests Election Results

In a move that many actually saw coming, President Jair Bolsonaro pulled a Donald Trump move and contested the results of Brazil elections, which was won by his leftist rival, Lula. He also demanded that the country's electoral authority annul votes cast on most of Brazil's electronic voting machines.

Bolsonaro spent most of the lead-up to the election, as well as the campaign season, throwing doubt about the results and attacking the country's Supreme Court and electoral authority.

For the results, the Brazilian president blamed a software bug for losing the election, though this complaint was lodged three weeks after the results of the highly contested elections were announced, naming Lula the winner.

Annulling Results Would Hand Jair Bolsonaro the Victory

According to the Associated Press, the lawyer who filed the request on behalf of the president and his Liberal Party, Marcelo de Bessa, stated during a press conference that the action of annulling the votes cast on most of Brazil's nation's electronic voting machines will hand Bolsonaro 51% of the remaining votes, thus giving him the victory.

In that same press conference, Liberal Party leader Valdemar Costa appeared alongside an auditor and stated that their evaluation of the results found that all machines dating from before 2020, which is nearly 280,000 of them, were used in the October 30 runoff election. However, they pointed out that these machines lacked individual identification numbers in internal logs.

They could not explain how this might have affected the election results; however, they stated that the bug is an "irreparable non-compliance due to malfunction," and it calls into question the results of the Brazil election.

Bolsonaro supporters around Brazil have been protesting the results, even though there is not much evidence to back up the claims. Al Jazeera reported that the move could galvanize these supporters even more, as Bolsonaro's anti-democratic rhetoric has already sparked fears that he might copy Donald Trump's January 6 insurrection attempt if he does not get what he wants.

Brazil's Election Authority Pushes Back Against Jair Bolsonaro's Claims

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who heads the electoral authority, stated that the court would not consider the complaint unless the party offers an amended report within 24 hours. This report should include results from the first electoral round where Bolsonaro's Liberal party won more seats in both congressional houses than all other parties, including Lula's Workers' Party.

The Brazilian military also pushed back against these claims by Bolsonaro in a 63-page report to Brazil's electoral authority. According to The Guardian, many feared that the military, which has close ties to Bolsonaro, would echo his party's claims. However, Bolsonaro supporters' hopes were dashed when the military refuted these claims and found that there was no evidence of election fraud in Brazil.

As for the bug, it is still unknown if it does affect the results, However, Diego Aranha, an associate professor of systems security at Aarhus University in Denmark, told the Associated Press that "It does not undermine the reliability or credibility in any way."

Professor Aranha has participated in official security tests of Brazil's electoral system,

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

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