Brazil’s Federal Accounts Court finds no problem with voting machines

The Federal Accounts Court found no inconsistencies in the data published in 560 printed receipts from voting machines and results of Sunday’s election published online. 

Court head Bruno Dantas said on Wednesday that the Election Day inspection was conducted by 54 inspectors — two in each Brazilian state.  The number of bulletins analyzed is a slight increase from the 540 originally announced.

“The analysis was concluded early on Monday, and the process of checking votes of candidates for senator, governor, and president did not register any inconsistency or incorrect data,” Mr. Dantas said during a court session.

The decision to compare data from voting machines with official results came amid a slew of attacks from President Jair Bolsonaro, questioning the voting system’s integrity. Before Election Day, the president suggested that if he won less than 60 percent of the vote, it would mean “something abnormal” had happened in the Superior Electoral Court.

After polls close at 5 pm on Sunday, poll workers are required to print a bulletin showing how many votes each candidate got in each electronic voting machine. Brazil’s elections use almost half a million such machines across 5,570 municipalities.

Separately, the Defense Ministry carried out its own checks of voting machine printouts, which they have no constitutional mandate to do. The ministry has not disclosed any results.

The inspection of the so-called “ballot bulletins” is one of the many ways Brazil’s elections are audited. The source code is made available for inspection, and machines undergo public integrity tests to ensure they work as intended on Election Day.

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