Jair Bolsonaro's Camp Ramping up Election Fraud Claims in Brazil With the Help of Donald Trump Advisers

The camp of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro is preparing to strengthen their election fraud claims with the help of former President Donald Trump and his advisers.

According to Washington Post, Bolsonaro's son, Brazilian congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, was in Florida since the October 30 vote. He met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and strategized with other political allies by phone.

Eduardo had spoken with former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon, who was in Arizona to help in the campaign of GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

Bannon and Bolsonaro's son talked about the potential challenges to Brazil's election results and the power of pro-Bolsonaro protests. Bolsonaro's son also lunched with former Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller.

Eduardo and Miller, now the CEO of the social media company Gettr, discussed online censorship and free speech. Brazil is currently mirroring the events that took place in January 2020 when Trump claimed that there was an incident of election fraud during the presidential vote.

Tens of thousands of Bolsonaro's supporters continue to call for the military in over 20 cities to intervene in the vote. Some of Bolsonaro's advisers, including Bannon, want him to contest the result, while Miller said Bolsonaro was not running against Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva but against Brazil's Supreme Court.

Jair Bolsonaro's Election Result Challenge Rejected by Brazil's Electoral Court

Brazil's electoral court has rejected an attempt by Jair Bolsonaro's party to overturn the results of October's run-off election.

Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes also fined the parties in Bolsonaro's coalition $4.3 million for what the court depicted as "bad faith litigation," the Guardian reported.

Bolsonaro challenged the Brazilian presidential election he had lost last month against Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. He argued that votes from several machines should be invalidated as his coalition's audit of the October 30 second-round runoff had found "signs of irreparable" malfunction in some electronic voting machines.

Lawyers of Bolsonaro's party filed a 33-page request on Tuesday, citing a software bug in the majority of Brazil's machines. However, they lack individual identification numbers in their internal logs.

In his ruling, De Moraes wrote that the challenge to the vote appeared targeted at incentivizing anti-democratic protest movements and creating commotion. He also ordered an investigation to Bolsonaro's party president, Valdemar Costa.

Political science professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, Mauricio Santoro, said the judge's message is clear that the "game is over," and questioning election results "is not fair play," and "people and institutions who do that will be punished harshly."

Brazil Election Fraud Claims

Earlier this month, Brazil's military released a report, noting that it found no evidence of any irregularities, The New York Times reported. It added that the nature of Brazil's fully digital voting system meant it could not decisively rule out a specific fraud scenario.

Independent security experts noted that the military's report was technically sound. However, supporters of Jair Bolsonaro believed that the report was "further evidence" that Bolsonaro's loss should be questioned.

Security experts noted that the electronic voting system is "reliable, efficient," and just like any other digital system "not 100% sure."

Jair Bolsonaro has attacked the country's election system as being full of fraud. However, he did not offer any evidence to support these claims.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

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