The Brazilian elections on Sunday, October 2, and the electronic voting system are safe, said the president of the Inter-American Union of Electoral Organizations (UNIORE), Lorenzo Córdova, in an exclusive interview with Península 360 Press and Global Exchange.
The president of the National Electoral Institute (INE) of Mexico also stated that in a few days a technical report prepared by UNIORE to evaluate the reliability of electronic voting in Brazil will be published.
"In a couple of days we will present the technical report of the UNIORE mission that monitored and issued an opinion on the electronic ballot box and that reveals the certainty and strength of this mechanism to be able to generate certainty in the casting of votes," said Córdova.
Electronic elections are not new in Brazil. In fact, they have been used since 1996, so the Brazilian electoral authorities have been able to perfect over time the use of this mechanism so that Brazilians can cast their vote.
The certainty that UNIORE provides regarding electronic voting becomes relevant in the context of the statements made by Jair Bolsonaro, current president and candidate for re-election, in which he has pointed out that elections are not reliable and that it is possible to intervene in the software to generate electoral fraud. However, various studies and investigations by Brazilian electoral authorities point to the reliability of the voting system.
"I think it will be a great day for Brazilian democracy and the democratic path will be vindicated as the path that Brazilians have built for 30 years, as the legitimate way to go out and vote. And the electronic ballot box will be vindicated as a mechanism of electoral certainty that Brazilians have been testing election after election since 1996 as a mechanism of certainty and legal strength," said Lorenzo Córdova.
In his most recent statements, Jair Bolsonaro has questioned the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) and the electronic vote itself, pointing out that the ballots should be printed; in addition, the current president has declared in recent weeks that the armed forces should participate in the electoral process as an arbitrator.
According to polls from at least nine companies, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is ahead of Bolsonaro three days before the elections. According to Ipec/Globo, Lula has obtained 48 percent of the voting intention of those surveyed and Bolsonaro 31 percent; according to Datafloha/folha the difference is smaller since the candidate of the Workers' Party has 47 percent of the preferences compared to 33 percent of the current president.
This note was made with the support of the organization Global Exchange in collaboration with Peninsula 360 Press.
You may be interested in: Challenging candidacies in resistance: Brazil 2022
