Brazil’s electoral authorities try (and fail) to win over the military

At the beginning of this week, Supreme Court Justice Luís Roberto Barroso said Brazil’s Armed Forces are being “instructed” to attack the credibility of the country’s electronic voting system, and that there is a concerted effort to bring the military into “petty politics,” which he called a “tragedy” for democracy. The justice’s words — which sparked an outraged response from the Defense Ministry — voice frustrations that have been brewing for months.

Since 1996, Brazil has used a completely electronic voting system. And over the dozen elections conducted therein, it has faced no credible allegations of fraud, being tested by national and international bodies as safe and secure. Indeed, the serious cases of vote-rigging in Brazil’s history all precede the electronic ballot boxes.

However, since his election in 2018, President Bolsonaro claims the system is corrupt — without producing any evidence to back up his allegations. In fact, he even called the 2018 election rigged — a vote which he won — saying that first-round results were manipulated to set up a runoff between himself and second-placed Workers’ Party candidate Fernando Haddad.

He ponders that the same could happen in this year’s presidential vote, urging his supporters to question the results if Mr. Bolsonaro is not reelected. 

The military doing Bolsonaro’s dirty work

Among the measures adopted by Brazil’s electoral authorities to combat Mr. Bolsonaro’s onslaught against electronic ballot boxes was to create a committee made up of researchers, lawmakers, representatives of civil society, and members of the Armed Forces, Federal Prosecution Office, and Federal Police to closely monitor the steps that guarantee the voting system’s...