Electoral court renders Jair Bolsonaro ineligible for eight years

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro spent most of 2022 saying that Brazil’s electronic voting machines couldn’t be trusted. For his words, he will now be prevented from appearing on any of them until 2030, as the Superior Electoral Court on Friday reached a majority to convict him of abuse of power.

Five of Brazil’s seven electoral justices ruled that Mr. Bolsonaro committed electoral crimes when he used his previous office to sow distrust in the system Brazil uses to choose its representatives. 

On Tuesday, electoral ombudsman Benedito Gonçalves was the first to vote in favor of Mr. Bolsonaro’s conviction. The vote that guaranteed a majority for the conviction came from Justice Cármen Lúcia, who also sits on the Supreme Court. Even before giving her reasoning, she began by saying she would side with Justice Gonçalves — eliminating any possibility of suspense.

The case stems from a lawsuit filed last August by the center-left Democratic Labor Party, which sought to prevent Mr. Bolsonaro from seeking re-election after he invited foreign diplomats to a meeting at the presidential residence in July 2022, during which the former president spread disinformation about the electoral process.

The PDT lawsuit argues that as president, Mr. Bolsonaro was in a unique position to unite an audience of...