Bolsonaro’s party double-deals again on election fraud conspiracy

Valdemar Costa Neto, the chairman of President Jair Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party, is once again playing a double game in relation to unfounded accusations against the integrity of Brazil’s electoral process.

Right-wing news website O Antagonista on Tuesday reported that the Liberal Party plans to sue the Superior Electoral Court in a push to annul the election’s results. According to the story, an investigation commissioned by the party found that older electronic voting machines did not function correctly and used a different source code from the one in the newer models.

Audits by the Federal Accounts Court and the Armed Forces found no evidence of fraud in this year’s elections or discrepancies between printed vote receipts and results published online. Additionally, all voting machines use the same source code.

Brazil’s elections require about half a million electronic voting machines. The models are periodically and gradually replaced each election cycle, so in every election, there are different generations of machines being used at the same time.

A conspiracy theory circulated online just after President Bolsonaro lost re-election on October 30, claiming he had a better performance in the newest electronic voting machines. The conspiracy makes no sense from the start. The supposed malicious actors desiring to favor the left-wing opposition could have simply postponed the adoption of the newer machines and ran the election exclusively with older models.

According to news website Metrópoles, Mr. Costa Neto later on Tuesday sent a message to lawmakers saying the investigation commissioned by the party was not yet concluded and that the findings published by O Antagonista were “obsolete” and “unsigned.”

Just before the election, Mr. Costa Neto played a similar game. A two-page document with the Liberal Party’s letterhead was initially leaked to the press, with several false allegations of electoral fraud. Mr. Costa Neto then told the Electoral Court that “technical staff” hired by his party were solely responsible for the document.

Benedito Gonçalves, Brazil’s electoral ombudsman, rebuked Mr. Costa Neto’s attempt to evade responsibility for that document. Justice Gonçalves also ordered Mr. Costa Neto to explain how the party paid for the audit.

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