The outgoing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro filed a complaint Tuesday with the electoral court claiming that the result of the recent presidential election was invalid on account of "malfunctioning" ballot boxes
President Jair Bolsonaro’s party is questioning the result of Brazil’s runoff election, seeking to annul votes that gave leftist leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva a tight victory on Oct. 30.
The outgoing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro filed a complaint Tuesday with the electoral court claiming the result of the recent presidential election was invalid on account of "malfunctioning" ballot boxes.
The filing claimed that ballot box models UE2009, UE2010, UE2011, UE2013 and UE2015 were reported to have been "malfunctioning" during Election Day. In total, the claim alleges that over 350,000 votes registered by the specified ballot boxes were invalid.
It's worth noting that the amount of ballots being refuted by the Bolsonaro camp would effectively give him the winning ticket for the October runoff election.
Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party claimed on Tuesday that older models of Brazil’s electronic ballots had problems that make it impossible to properly identify the machines, and requested that votes cast through them be annulled. If only new models of the machines are deemed reliable, the conservative president would be reelected with 51.05% of the votes, the party said.
Alexandre de Moraes, the lead justice of the electoral court, has ordered Bolsonaro and company to submit its full account for both election rounds within the next 24 hours, noting that the complaint would be vacated if the deadline was not met.
Bolsonaro, 67, was first elected as president of Brazil in 2019 after leaving the Social Liberal Party of Brazil but not before he converted it into a nationalist, economically liberal, and socially conservative party. His second presidential bid came to an end after being bested by President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 76, who was president of Brazil from 2003 until 2010, and is a member of, as well as the former president of the Worker's Party (PT).
Lula's win against Bolsonaro was slim, with Bolsonaro winning 49% of the votes (58.2 million) compared to Lula's 50.9% (60.3 million).
The electoral court replied by saying that the same machines were used in both rounds of election. Therefore, the allegations will only be considered if the first round of the vote is also reviewed, the court’s president, Justice Alexandre de Moraes, wrote in his decision.
He gave 24 hours for the Liberal Party to decide how to proceed. His ruling puts the Liberal Party in a tough spot because a move to question first-round results would likely affect the election of many of its members in congress.
Brazilian assets extended losses after the announcement, hitting daily lows. The real fell as much as 1.6%, while stocks dropped 1.4% as of 4:37 p.m. in Sao Paulo.
“The biggest post-election risk was that results would be contested,” Tiago Cunha, a money manager at Ace Capital, said. “That had faded, but it’s now back.”
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