Bolsonaro Wants Brazil’s Election Annulled 

Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has rejected the outcome of the country’s recent presidential election. 

What’s he saying? 

About a month after his failed re-election bid, Bolsonaro on Tuesday demanded that the electoral authority annul votes cast on most of the country’s electronic voting machines, as he blamed a software bug for allegedly compromising the integrity of the election. If the electoral authority yields to his demands, Bolsonaro will emerge the winner, with 51% of the remaining valid votes. 

Is there evidence for the bug claim? 

Independent experts have dismissed the claim, arguing that the bug doesn’t affect the reliability of the election results. Defending Bolsonaro’s claim, Valdemar Costa, Liberal Party leader and the auditor hired by the party told reporters in Brasilia that their evaluation found about 280,000 machines (about 59% of the total used in the October 30 runoff) lacked individual identification numbers in internal logs. The party, however, did not explain how that may have impacted the election results. 
Has the election authority responded? Reacting to the development, the election authority suggested that for the complaint to be treated, the whole election, including the results from the first electoral round on October 2 – which favoured Bolsonaro’s party, must be reviewed. The Liberal Party won more seats in both congressional houses than any other party in the first round of voting on October 2. According to Alexandre de Moraes, jurist at Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court, the court would not consider the complaint unless the party submitted an amended report within 24 hours that included those first round results.