Company that built voting machines confirms saga for semiconductors

Brazil's voting machine. Photo: Andre Goldstein/ Shutterstock.

One of the founders of Positivo Tecnologia, a company based in the southern state of Paraná that won a tender to produce voting machines, revealed in an interview with the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo that they faced difficulties in procuring semiconductors in time to prepare the equipment for the 2022 elections.

“We faced significant challenges in procuring components,” said Hélio Rotenberg, who has been running the company for 34 years. He mentioned that Supreme Court Justice Luís Roberto Barroso, who headed the Superior Electoral Court at the time, along with Brazilian and North American ambassadors, took action to assist the company in obtaining the supplies.

The history of the race for semiconductors was revealed in detail by The Brazilian Report in June. It represented a significant effort by authorities to ensure that the elections would not be postponed, a situation that could have jeopardized Brazilian democracy.

Due to the pandemic and the rise in remote work, the demand for semiconductors surged. These components are used in nearly all electronic devices, including cell phones, personal computers, cars – and even the voting machines. Positivo Tecnologia was contracted to manufacture 225,000 new voting machines, which were intended to replace older ones.

The situation was even more sensitive due to the repeated statements by former President Jair Bolsonaro, who falsely claimed that the elections could be manipulated by tampering with the ballots. This narrative was intended for use in case he lost the election – which did indeed occur.

Mr. Rotenberg also mentioned in the interview that the ballots used in Brazilian elections since 1996 are a “masterpiece,” and their security was never in question.”This political battle was not ours. We were contracted to provide the ballot boxes, adhering to the Electoral Court’s specifications. We are pained by the insults people hurl on social networks.”

Amanda Audi

Amanda Audi is a journalist specializing in politics and human rights. She is the former executive director of Congresso em Foco and worked as a reporter for The Intercept Brasil, Folha de S. Paulo, O Globo, Gazeta do Povo, Poder360, among others. In 2019, she won the Comunique-se Award for best-written media reporter and won the Mulher Imprensa award for web journalism in 2020