Voter Fraud (Election Fraud)

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      Bolsonaro ha sido inhabilitado en Brasil. Trump busca la presidencia en EE. UU.

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      Aunque el comportamiento de ambos expresidentes fue muy similar, las consecuencias políticas que enfrentan han sido drásticamente diferentes.El presidente de extrema derecha, que no era el favorito en las encuestas, alertó sobre un fraude electoral a pesar de no tener ninguna prueba. Tras perder, afirmó que las elecciones estaban amañadas. Miles de sus seguidores —envueltos en banderas nacionales y engañados por teorías de la conspiración— procedieron a asaltar el Congreso, buscando anular los resultados.Ese escenario describe las elecciones presidenciales más recientes en las democracias más grandes del hemisferio occidental: Estados Unidos y Brasil.Pero si bien el comportamiento de los dos expresidentes —Donald Trump y Jair Bolsonaro— fue muy similar, las consecuencias políticas han sido drásticamente diferentes.Si bien Trump enfrenta cargos federales y estatales que lo acusan de pagarle a una actriz de cine porno por su silencio y de manejar de manera indebida documentos clasificados, sigue siendo la figura más influyente de la derecha estadounidense. Más de dos años después de dejar la Casa Blanca, Trump parece estar destinado a convertirse en el candidato republicano a la presidencia, con una amplia ventaja en las encuestas.En Brasil, Bolsonaro ha enfrentado represalias más rápidas y feroces. También enfrenta numerosas investigaciones criminales. Las autoridades allanaron su casa y confiscaron su teléfono celular. Y el viernes, menos de seis meses después de que dejara el poder, el Tribunal Superior Electoral de Brasil votó para inhabilitar a Bolsonaro de optar a un cargo político durante lo que queda de la década.Las secuelas de un asalto en el complejo de oficinas del gobierno brasileño por parte de los partidarios de Bolsonaro en enero.Victor Moriyama para The New York TimesEl tribunal dictaminó que el expresidente abusó de su poder cuando hizo afirmaciones sin fundamento sobre la integridad de los sistemas de votación de Brasil en la televisión estatal. Su próxima oportunidad a la presidencia sería en las elecciones de 2030, en las que tendría 75 años.Trump, incluso si es hallado culpable en un caso antes de las elecciones del año que viene, no sería descalificado automáticamente de postularse a la presidencia.El contraste entre las consecuencias que enfrentan ambos hombres refleja las diferencias de las estructuras políticas y gubernamentales de los dos países. El sistema estadounidense ha dejado el destino de Trump en manos de los votantes y del proceso lento y metódico del sistema judicial. En Brasil, los tribunales han sido proactivos, rápidos y agresivos para eliminar cualquier cosa que consideren una amenaza para la joven democracia de la nación.Las elecciones estadounidenses están a cargo de los estados, con un mosaico de reglas en todo el país sobre quién es elegible para postularse y cómo. En muchos casos, uno de los pocos obstáculos para aparecer en una boleta es recolectar suficientes firmas de votantes elegibles.En Brasil, las elecciones están regidas por el Tribunal Superior Electoral, el cual, como parte de sus funciones, sopesa regularmente si los candidatos tienen derecho a postularse para un cargo.“El alcalde, el gobernador o el presidente tienden a abusar de su poder para ser reelectos. Por eso creamos la ley de inelegibilidad”, dijo Ricardo Lewandowski, juez jubilado del Supremo Tribunal Federal de Brasil y expresidente del Tribunal Superior Electoral.La ley brasileña establece que los políticos que abusen de sus cargos sean temporalmente inelegibles para cargos. Como resultado, el Tribunal Superior Electoral ha bloqueado rutinariamente la postulación de políticos, incluidos, junto con Bolsonaro, tres expresidentes.“Lo que nuestro sistema trata de hacer es proteger al votante”, dijo Lewandowski. “Quienes cometieron delitos contra el pueblo deben permanecer fuera del juego durante cierto periodo de tiempo hasta que se rehabiliten”.Según algunos analistas, esta estrategia ha puesto demasiado poder en manos de los siete jueces del Tribunal Superior Electoral, en lugar de que sean los votantes quienes decidan.“Es una diferencia estructural entre los dos países”, dijo Thomas Traumann, analista político y exsecretario Especial de Comunicación Social de una presidenta brasileña de izquierda. Los políticos en Brasil conocen las reglas, dijo, y el sistema ha ayudado a mantener alejados del poder a algunos políticos corruptos. “Por otro lado, estás impidiendo que la gente decida”, dijo.El sistema electoral centralizado de Brasil también impidió que Bolsonaro librara una batalla tan prolongada por los resultados de las elecciones como lo hizo Trump.En Estados Unidos, un conteo lento de votos retrasó una semana la proclamación del ganador y luego el proceso del Colegio Electoral tomó varios meses más. Cada estado también realizó sus propias elecciones y auditorías. Eso le dio a Trump, y a los políticos y grupos que lo apoyaban, tiempo y varios frentes para implementar ataques contra el proceso.En Brasil, un país con 220 millones de habitantes, el sistema electrónico de votación contó las boletas en dos horas. La autoridad electoral central y no los medios de comunicación, procedieron a anunciar al ganador esa noche, en una ceremonia que involucró a líderes del Congreso, los tribunales y el gobierno.El sistema de votación electrónica de Brasil contó las papeletas en dos horas.Victor Moriyama para The New York TimesBolsonaro permaneció en silencio durante dos días pero, con pocas opciones, al final se hizo a un lado.Sin embargo, ese enfoque también conlleva riesgos.“Se podría alegar que ser tan centralizado también te hace propenso a más abusos que en el sistema estadounidense, que está más descentralizado y permite básicamente una supervisión local”, dijo Omar Encarnación, profesor del Bard College que ha estudiado los sistemas democráticos en ambos países.Sin embargo, añadió, en Estados Unidos, varios estados han aprobado recientemente leyes de votación restrictivas. “Resulta claro que son dos modelos muy diferentes y, dependiendo del punto de vista, se podría argumentar cuál es mejor o peor para la democracia”.En el periodo previo a las elecciones, el sistema de Brasil también le permitió combatir de manera mucho más agresiva contra cualquier desinformación o conspiración antidemocrática. El Supremo Tribunal Federal ordenó redadas y arrestos, bloqueó a miembros del Congreso de las redes sociales y tomó medidas para prohibir a las empresas de tecnología que no cumplieran con las órdenes judiciales.El resultado fue una campaña radical e implacable destinada a combatir la desinformación electoral. Sin embargo las medidas también generaron reclamos generalizados de extralimitación. Algunas redadas se enfocaron en personas solo porque estaban en un grupo de WhatsApp que había mencionado un golpe de Estado. Algunas personas fueron encarceladas temporalmente sin juicio por criticar al tribunal. Un congresista fue sentenciado a prisión por amenazar a los jueces en una transmisión en vivo.Estas acciones estrictas de los tribunales han ampliado su enorme influencia en la política brasileña en los últimos años, incluido su papel central en la llamada investigación Lava Jato que envió a prisión al presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.“La audacia, la temeridad con la que los tribunales han actuado, no solo contra Bolsonaro, sino incluso contra Lula, sugiere que los tribunales se están comportando de una manera un tanto —odio usar la palabra irresponsable— pero tal vez incluso represiva”, dijo Encarnación.Sin embargo, a pesar de los esfuerzos del tribunal, miles de partidarios de Bolsonaro procedieron a atacar y saquear los recintos del poder de la nación en enero, una semana después de la toma de posesión de Lula.Si bien la situación fue inquietantemente similar al asalto al Capitolio de Estados Unidos el 6 de enero de 2021, los roles de los dos expresidentes fueron diferentes.Cientos de simpatizantes de Bolsonaro fueron detenidos temporalmente después de los disturbios de enero.Victor Moriyama para The New York TimesAmbos avivaron los reclamos y convencieron a sus seguidores de que se cometió un supuesto fraude, pero Trump les ordenó de manera explícita que marcharan hacia el Capitolio durante un discurso en las inmediaciones del lugar.Cuando los simpatizantes de Bolsonaro formaron su propia turba, Bolsonaro se encontraba a miles de kilómetros en Florida, donde permaneció por tres meses.En ambos países, cientos de invasores fueron arrestados y condenados, e investigaciones de los congresos están investigando lo sucedido. Por lo demás, las consecuencias han sido distintas.Al igual que Trump, Bolsonaro también ha defendido a sus seguidores.El viernes, Bolsonaro dijo que la revuelta no había sido un intento de golpe de Estado sino “viejitas y viejitos con banderas brasileñas en sus espaldas y biblias bajo sus brazos”.Pero las repercusiones políticas han sido diferentes.En Estados Unidos, gran parte del Partido Republicano ha aceptado las afirmaciones infundadas de fraude electoral, los estados han aprobado leyes que dificultan el voto y los votantes han elegido candidatos para el Congreso y las legislaturas estatales que niegan los resultados de las elecciones presidenciales.En Brasil, la clase política se ha alejado en gran medida del discurso de fraude electoral, así como del propio Bolsonaro. Los líderes conservadores están impulsando en la actualidad a un gobernador más moderado como el nuevo abanderado de la derecha brasileña.Encarnación afirmó que, a pesar de sus problemas, el sistema democrático de Brasil puede proporcionar un modelo sobre cómo combatir las nuevas amenazas antidemocráticas.“Básicamente, las democracias están luchando contra la desinformación y Dios sabe qué otras cosas con instituciones muy anticuadas”, dijo. “Necesitamos actualizar el hardware. No creo que haya sido diseñado para personas como las que enfrentan estos países”.Jack Nicas es el jefe de la corresponsalía en Brasil, que abarca Brasil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay y Uruguay. Anteriormente reportó de tecnología desde San Francisco y, antes de integrarse al Times en 2018, trabajó siete años en The Wall Street Journal. @jacknicas • Facebook More

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      Why Trump and Bolsonaro Cases Were Handled Differently

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      In both the United States and Brazil, former presidents made baseless claims of fraud, and their supporters stormed government buildings.Down in the polls, the far-right president warned of voter fraud, despite no evidence. After losing, he claimed the vote was rigged. Thousands of his supporters — draped in the national flag and misled by conspiracy theories — then stormed Congress in a bid to overturn the results.That scenario describes the latest elections in the Western Hemisphere’s largest democracies: the United States and Brazil.But while the behavior of the two former presidents — Donald J. Trump and Jair Bolsonaro — was remarkably similar, the political aftermath has been drastically different.While Mr. Trump faces federal and state charges that accuse him of paying off a porn star and mishandling classified documents, he remains the most influential figure on the American right. More than two years after leaving the White House, he again appears poised to become the Republican nominee for president, with a wide lead in the polls.In Brazil, Mr. Bolsonaro has faced much swifter and fiercer blowback. He, too, faces numerous criminal investigations. The authorities have raided his house and confiscated his cellphone. And on Friday, less than six months after he left power, Brazil’s electoral court voted to block Mr. Bolsonaro from political office for the rest of the decade.The aftermath of a riot at the Brazilian government office complex by supporters of Mr. Bolsonaro in January.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesThe court ruled he had abused his power when he made baseless claims about the integrity of Brazil’s voting systems on state television. His next shot at the presidency would be in the 2030 election, when he is 75.Mr. Trump, even if he is convicted in a case before next year’s election, could still potentially run.The contrasting fallout for the two men reflect key differences in the two countries’ political and governing structures. The U.S. system has left Mr. Trump’s fate up to voters and the slow, methodical process of the justice system. In Brazil, the courts have been proactive, fast and aggressive in snuffing out anything they see as a threat to the nation’s young democracy.U.S. elections are run by the states, with a patchwork of rules across the country on who is eligible to run and how. In many cases, one of the few hurdles to appearing on a ballot is collecting enough signatures from eligible voters.In Brazil, elections are governed by a federal electoral court, which, as part of its duties, regularly weighs in on whether candidates have the right to seek office.“The mayor, governor or president tend to abuse their power to be re-elected. So we created the law of ineligibility,” said Ricardo Lewandowski, a retired Brazilian Supreme Court justice and former head of the electoral court.Brazilian law states that politicians who abuse their positions are temporarily ineligible for office. As a result, the electoral court has routinely blocked politicians from running, including, with Mr. Bolsonaro, three former presidents.“What our system has tried to do is protect the voter,” Mr. Lewandowski said. “Those who committed crimes against the public have to stay out of the game for a certain amount of time until they rehabilitate.”The approach has also put what some analysts say is too much power in the hands of the electoral court’s seven judges, instead of voters.“It’s a structural difference between the two countries,” said Thomas Traumann, a political analyst and former press secretary for a leftist Brazilian president. Politicians in Brazil know the rules, he said, and the system has helped keep some corrupt politicians from power. “On the other hand, you are preventing the people from deciding,” he said.Brazil’s centralized electoral system also thwarted Mr. Bolsonaro from waging as protracted a fight over the election’s results as Mr. Trump did.In the United States, a slow vote count delayed the declaration of a winner for a week, and the Electoral College process then took several more months. Each state also ran its own election and audits. That gave Mr. Trump and politicians and groups supporting him time and various fronts to mount attacks against the process.In Brazil, a nation of 220 million people, the electronic voting system counted the ballots in two hours. The central electoral authority, not the news media, then declared the winner that night, in a ceremony involving leaders of Congress, the courts and the government.Brazil’s electronic voting system counted the ballots in two hours. Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesMr. Bolsonaro remained silent for two days but, with few options, eventually stepped aside.But that approach also carries risks.“You can argue that being that centralized is also prone to more abuse than the American system, which is more decentralized and allows for basically local supervision,” said Omar Encarnación, a Bard College professor who has studied the democratic systems in both countries.Yet in the United States, several states have recently passed restrictive voting laws, he added. “So clearly, these are two very different models, and one can argue in either direction, which one is best or worst for democracy.”In the run-up to the election, Brazil’s system also allowed it to fight far more aggressively against any anti-democratic misinformation or plotting. The nation’s Supreme Court ordered raids and arrests, blocked members of Congress from social networks and moved to ban tech companies in Brazil that did not comply with court orders.The result was a sweeping and unrelenting campaign aimed at fighting election misinformation. But the moves also drew widespread claims of overreach. Some raids targeted people just because they were in a WhatsApp group that had mentioned a coup. Some people were temporarily jailed without a trial for criticizing the court. A congressman was sentenced to prison for threatening judges on a livestream.Such stringent actions by the courts extends their outsized influence in Brazilian politics in recent years, including their central role in the so-called Car Wash investigation that sent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to prison.“The boldness, the fearlessness in which the courts have acted, not just against Bolsonaro, but even toward Lula, would suggest that the courts are behaving in a somewhat — I hate to use the word reckless — but perhaps even in a repressive mode,” Mr. Encarnación said.Yet regardless of the court’s efforts, thousands of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters still raided and ransacked the nation’s halls of power a week after Mr. Lula’s inauguration in January.While the scenes were eerily similar to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the roles of the two ex-presidents were different.Hundreds of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters were temporarily detained after the riot in January.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesBoth had fanned the flames, convincing their followers there had been fraud, but Mr. Trump explicitly directed his supporters to march to the Capitol during a speech nearby.When Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters formed their own mob, Mr. Bolsonaro was thousands of miles away in Florida, where he remained for three months.In both countries, hundreds of trespassers were arrested and charged, and congressional investigations are digging into what happened. Otherwise the aftermath has been different.Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Bolsonaro has also defended his supporters.Mr. Bolsonaro said on Friday that the riot was not an attempted coup, but instead “little old women and little old men, with Brazilian flags on their back and Bibles under their arms.”But the political reverberations have differed.In the U.S., much of the Republican Party has embraced the baseless claims of election-fraud, states have passed laws that make it harder to vote, and voters have elected election-denying candidates to Congress and state legislatures.In Brazil, the political establishment has largely moved away from talk of election fraud — and from Mr. Bolsonaro himself. Conservative leaders are now pushing a more moderate governor as the new standard-bearer of the Brazilian right.Mr. Encarnación said that, despite its problems, Brazil’s democratic system can provide a model on how to fight new anti-democratic threats.“Democracies basically are fighting misinformation and God knows what else with very antiquated institutions,” he said. “We do need to upgrade the hardware. I don’t think it was designed for people of the likes these countries are facing.” More

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      Brazil’s Bolsonaro Blocked From Office for Election-Fraud Claims

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      Brazil’s electoral court banned former President Jair Bolsonaro from seeking office until 2030 for spreading false claims about the nation’s voting system.Brazilian election officials on Friday blocked former President Jair Bolsonaro from seeking public office until 2030, removing a top contender from the next presidential contest and dealing a significant blow to the country’s far-right movement.Brazil’s electoral court ruled that Mr. Bolsonaro had violated Brazil’s election laws when, less than three months ahead of last year’s vote, he called diplomats to the presidential palace and made baseless claims that the nation’s voting systems were likely to be rigged against him.Five of the court’s seven judges voted that Mr. Bolsonaro had abused his power as president when he convened the meeting with diplomats and broadcast it on state television.“This response will confirm our faith in the democracy,” said Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Court justice who leads the electoral court, as he cast his vote against Mr. Bolsonaro.The decision is a sharp and swift rebuke of Mr. Bolsonaro and his effort to undermine Brazil’s elections. Just six months ago, Mr. Bolsonaro was president of one of the world’s largest democracies. Now his career as a politician is in jeopardy.Under the ruling, Mr. Bolsonaro, 68, will next be able to run for president in 2030, when he is 75. The next presidential election is scheduled for 2026.Mr. Bolsonaro said Friday that he was not surprised by the 5-to-2 decision because the court had always been against him. “Come on. We know that since I took office they said I was going to carry out a coup,” he told reporters (though he, too, had hinted at that possibility). “This is not democracy.”His lawyers had argued that his speech to diplomats was an “act of government” aimed at raising legitimate concerns about election security.Mr. Bolsonaro appeared to accept his fate, saying Friday that he would focus on campaigning for other right-wing candidates.Yet he is still expected to appeal the ruling to Brazil’s Supreme Court, though that body acted aggressively to rein in his power during his presidency. He has harshly attacked the high court for years, calling some justices “terrorists” and accusing them of trying to sway the vote against him.Judge Alexandre de Moraes, center, a member of Brazil’s Supreme Court, used the court to curb Mr. Bolsonaro’s power during his administration.Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesEven if an appeal is successful, Mr. Bolsonaro would face another 15 cases in the electoral court, including accusations that he improperly used public funds to influence the vote and that his campaign ran a coordinated misinformation campaign. Any of those cases could also block him from seeking the presidency.He is also linked to several criminal investigations, involving whether he provoked his supporters to storm Brazil’s halls of power on Jan. 8 and whether he was involved in a scheme to falsify his vaccine records. (Mr. Bolsonaro has declined the Covid-19 vaccine.) A conviction in any criminal case would also render him ineligible for office, in addition to carrying possible prison time.Mr. Bolsonaro was a shock to Brazil’s politics when he was elected president in 2018. A former Army captain and fringe far-right congressman, he rode a populist wave to the presidency on an anti-corruption campaign.His lone term was marked by controversy from the start, including a sharp rise in deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, a hands-off approach to the pandemic that left nearly 700,000 dead in Brazil and harsh attacks against the press, the judiciary and the left.Mr. Bolsonaro in 2017, when he was a member of congress.Lalo de Almeida for The New York TimesBut it was his repeated broadsides against Brazil’s voting systems that alarmed many Brazilians, as well as the international community, stoking worries that he might try to hold on to power if he lost last October’s election.Mr. Bolsonaro did lose by a slim margin and at first refused to concede. Under pressure from allies and rivals, he eventually agreed to a transition to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.Yet, after listening to Mr. Bolsonaro’s false claims for years, many Bolsonaro supporters remained convinced that Mr. Lula, a leftist, had stolen the election. On Jan. 8, a week after Mr. Lula took office, thousands of people stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices, hoping to induce the military to take over the government and restore Mr. Bolsonaro as president.Mr. Bolsonaro said on Friday that the riot was not an attempted coup, but instead “little old women and little old men, with Brazilian flags on their back and Bibles under their arms.”Since then, more evidence has emerged that at least some members of Mr. Bolsonaro’s inner circle were entertaining ideas of a coup. Brazil’s federal police found separate drafts of plans for Mr. Bolsonaro to hold on to power at the home of Mr. Bolsonaro’s justice minister and on the phone of his former assistant.Mr. Bolsonaro’s attacks on the voting system and the Jan. 8 riot in Brazil bore a striking resemblance to former president Donald J. Trump’s denials that he lost the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.The aftermath of the riot at the Brazilian government complex in Brasília in January.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesYet the result for the two former presidents has so far been different. While Mr. Bolsonaro has already been excluded from the next presidential race, Mr. Trump remains the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination. Mr. Trump could also still run for president even if he is convicted of any of the various criminal charges he faces.The ruling against Mr. Bolsonaro upends politics in Latin America’s largest nation. For years, he has pulled Brazil’s conservative movement further to the right with harsh rhetoric against rivals, skepticism of science, a love of guns and an embrace of the culture wars.He received 49.1 percent of the vote in the 2022 election, just 2.1 million votes behind Mr. Lula, in the nation’s closest presidential contest since it returned to democracy in 1985, following a military dictatorship.Yet conservative leaders in Brazil, with an eye toward Mr. Bolsonaro’s legal challenges, have started to move on, touting Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas, the right-wing governor of Brazil’s largest state, São Paulo, as the new standard-bearer of the right and a 2026 challenger to Mr. Lula.“He is a much more palatable candidate because he doesn’t have Bolsonaro’s liabilities and because he is making a move to the center,” said Marta Arretche, a political science professor at the University of São Paulo.The Brazilian press and pollsters have speculated that Mr. Bolsonaro’s wife, Michelle, or two of his sons would run for president. Mr. Bolsonaro said recently that he told Ms. Bolsonaro she doesn’t have the necessary experience, “but she is an excellent campaigner.”Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas, the right-wing governor of São Paulo state, is emerging as a new standard-bearer of the Brazilian right.Adriano Machado/ReutersFriday’s decision is also further proof that Mr. Moraes, the head of the electoral court, has become one of Brazil’s most powerful men.During Mr. Bolsonaro’s administration, Mr. Moraes acted as the most effective check on the president’s power, leading investigations into Mr. Bolsonaro and his allies, jailing some of his supporters for what he viewed as threats against Brazil’s institutions and ordering tech companies to remove the accounts of many other right-wing voices.Those tactics raised concerns that he was abusing his power, and Mr. Bolsonaro and his supporters have called Mr. Moraes an authoritarian. On the left, he has been praised as the savior of Brazil’s democracy.Mr. Bolsonaro’s case before the electoral court stemmed from a 47-minute meeting on July 18 in which he called dozens of foreign diplomats to the presidential residence to present what he promised was evidence of fraud in past Brazilian elections.He made unfounded claims that Brazil’s voting machines changed ballots for him to other candidates in a previous election and that a 2018 hack of the electoral court’s computer network showed the vote could be rigged. But security experts have said the hackers could never gain access to the voting machines or change votes.The speech was broadcast on the Brazilian government’s television network and its social media channels. Some tech companies later took the video down because it spread election misinformation.As for Mr. Bolsonaro’s future plans? He told the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo that during the three months he spent in Florida this year after his election loss, he was offered a job as a “poster boy” for American businesses wanting to reach Brazilians.“I went to a hamburger joint and it filled with people,” he said. “But I don’t want to abandon my country.”Ana Ionova More

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      Bolsonaro to Face Trial Over Electoral Fraud Claims

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      Brazil’s former president is accused of spreading false information about the nation’s election systems. A conviction would block him from office for eight years.The NewsBrazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, is scheduled to go on trial this month on charges that he abused his power as president to make baseless attacks against Brazil’s election systems. If convicted, he would be ineligible to run for office for eight years.A panel of seven judges in Brazil’s electoral court will decide the case, which is scheduled to start on June 22. The court aims to reach a decision this month, though the case could be delayed if any judge requests more time.A rival political party has accused Mr. Bolsonaro of abusing the office of the presidency when, less than three months ahead of Brazil’s elections last year, he summoned foreign diplomats to a meeting, made false claims about the country’s voting systems and broadcast the remarks on state television.Brazil’s top prosecutor for electoral cases recommended that Mr. Bolsonaro be blocked from running for office because his speech to diplomats was intended to undermine the public’s confidence in Brazil’s elections. The sole punishment prosecutors are seeking is making Mr. Bolsonaro ineligible to run for office, which is the typical punishment for abuse of power in such cases.“As the head of state making public critiques, it could only be understood as a warning to Brazilians and the world that the election results could not be seen as reliable and legitimate,” said the prosecutor, Paulo Gonet Branco, in a legal filing that is sealed but was viewed by The New York Times.Former President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil speaking in March, after his loss, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March in National Harbor, Md.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesWhy it Matters: A conviction could end Bolsonaro’s political career.The trial could upend Brazilian politics by removing Mr. Bolsonaro, the standard-bearer of Brazil’s conservative movement, from contention for the next two presidential elections.Mr. Bolsonaro, 68, remains a highly popular and influential figure among conservatives in Brazil and is seen as a likely challenger to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist, in 2026. Mr. Bolsonaro received 49.1 percent of the vote in the 2022 election, just 2.1 million votes behind Mr. Lula, in the nation’s closest presidential contest since Brazil’s democracy was restored in 1985 following a military dictatorship.A conviction would also be a clear and strong repudiation of Mr. Bolsonaro’s tactics to undermine the vote, and a warning to any political allies who might be considering a similar strategy.Mr. Bolsonaro’s rhetoric resembled that of former President Donald J. Trump, a political ally. But the results for the two men could prove very different. Just six months after leaving office, Mr. Bolsonaro is facing charges that could end his political career. At the same time, while Mr. Trump faces investigations into his efforts to question the 2020 U.S. election, he is still the leading contender to become the Republican Party’s nominee in next year’s presidential vote.The Background: Bolsonaro has long attacked Brazil’s elections.Mr. Bolsonaro spent years criticizing Brazil’s voting systems, claiming that they were vulnerable to fraud and that his rivals were bent on rigging them, despite a lack of evidence. His commentary led millions of his followers to lose faith in the election systems and believe that Mr. Lula stole the 2022 election.Despite Mr. Bolsonaro’s assertions, numerous reviews of the election results found no credible evidence of fraud.One week after Mr. Lula was inaugurated in January, many of Mr. Bolsonaro’s followers invaded and ransacked Brazil’s halls of power in a bid to get the military to take control of the government.Still, Mr. Bolsonaro did authorize the transition of power and, for the first several months of Mr. Lula’s presidency, receded into the background of Brazilian politics by temporarily moving to Florida. Mr. Bolsonaro is now back in Brazil and has been making more public appearances.His lawyers have argued that his speech to diplomats, which is at the center of this case, was an “act of government” aimed at raising legitimate concerns about the election’s security. They have noted that the diplomats cannot vote and argued that the speech didn’t interfere with the electoral process.Neither Mr. Bolsonaro’s lawyer nor his spokesman responded to requests for comment.What’s Next: Bolsonaro faces a trial — and many other investigationsAfter starting on June 22, Mr. Bolsonaro’s trial will likely continue in other court sessions scheduled for June 27 and June 29. The seven judges on the electoral-court panel — made up of Supreme Court justices, federal judges and lawyers — could decide the case quickly, with a simple majority needed to convict. The electoral court is scheduled to break for a monthlong recess in July.Regardless of the trial’s outcome, Mr. Bolsonaro faces 15 other cases in the electoral court, including those involving accusations that he improperly used public funds to influence the vote and that his campaign ran a coordinated misinformation campaign against Mr. Lula. A conviction in any case could also deem him ineligible for office for eight years.Mr. Bolsonaro is also a subject of a federal criminal investigation into the Jan. 8 invasion of Brazil’s government buildings. A top Brazilian prosecutor has accused him of encouraging the mob. A conviction in the case could lead to prison time. As part of the case, Mr. Bolsonaro testified in April before federal police.Letícia Casado More

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      Bolsonaro enfrentará juicio por denuncias de fraude electoral

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      El expresidente de Brasil está acusado de difundir información falsa sobre los sistemas electorales del país. Si lo condenan estaría inhabilitado para postular al cargo durante ocho años.La noticiaEstá previsto que el expresidente de Brasil, Jair Bolsonaro, vaya a juicio este mes por cargos de abuso de poder como presidente para realizar ataques infundados contra los sistemas electorales de Brasil. Si es declarado culpable, no sería elegible para postularse para el cargo durante ocho años.Un panel de siete jueces del Tribunal Electoral de Brasil decidirá el caso, que está programado para comenzar el 22 de junio. El tribunal pretende llegar a una decisión este mes, aunque el caso podría retrasarse si algún juez solicita más tiempo.Un partido político rival acusó a Bolsonaro de abusar del cargo de presidente cuando, menos de tres meses antes de las elecciones de Brasil el año pasado, convocó a diplomáticos extranjeros a una reunión, hizo afirmaciones falsas sobre los sistemas de votación del país y transmitió los comentarios en televisión estatal.El principal fiscal de casos electorales de Brasil recomendó que se impidiera a Bolsonaro presentarse a elecciones porque su discurso a los diplomáticos tenía la intención de socavar la confianza del público en las elecciones de Brasil.“Como el jefe de Estado hace críticas públicas, solo puede entenderse como una advertencia a los brasileños y al mundo de que los resultados de las elecciones no pueden ser vistos como confiables y legítimos”, dijo el fiscal, Paulo Gonet Branco, en un expediente legal que está sellado pero fue visto por The New York Times.El expresidente Jair Bolsonaro de Brasil habló en marzo, después de su derrota, en la Conferencia Política de Acción Conservadora en marzo en National Harbor, Maryland.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesPor qué es importante: una condena podría acabar con la carrera política de BolsonaroEl juicio podría trastornar la política brasileña al sacar a Bolsonaro, el abanderado del movimiento conservador de Brasil, de la contienda por las próximas dos elecciones presidenciales.Bolsonaro, de 68 años, sigue siendo una figura muy popular e influyente entre los conservadores de Brasil y es visto como un probable retador del presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, de izquierda, en 2026. Bolsonaro recibió el 49,1 por ciento de los votos en las elecciones de 2022, solo 2,1 millones de votos detrás de Lula, en la contienda presidencial más reñida del país desde que se restauró la democracia en Brasil en 1985 tras una dictadura militar.Una condena también sería un repudio claro y fuerte a las tácticas de Bolsonaro para socavar la votación y una advertencia a cualquier aliado político que pudiera estar considerando una estrategia similar.La retórica de Bolsonaro se parecía a la del expresidente Donald Trump, un aliado político. Pero los resultados para los dos hombres podrían ser muy diferentes. Solo seis meses después de dejar el cargo, Bolsonaro enfrenta cargos que podrían poner fin a su carrera política. Al mismo tiempo, mientras Trump enfrenta investigaciones sobre sus intentos de cuestionar las elecciones estadounidenses de 2020, sigue siendo el principal candidato para convertirse en el candidato del Partido Republicano en las elecciones presidenciales del próximo año.El trasfondo: Bolsonaro ha atacado durante mucho tiempo las elecciones de BrasilBolsonaro pasó años criticando los sistemas de votación de Brasil, alegando que eran vulnerables al fraude y que sus rivales estaban empeñados en manipularlos, a pesar de la falta de pruebas. Su comentario hizo que millones de sus seguidores perdieran la fe en los sistemas electorales y creyeran que Lula se robó las elecciones de 2022.A pesar de las afirmaciones de Bolsonaro, numerosas revisiones de los resultados electorales no encontraron pruebas creíbles de fraude.Una semana después de la toma de posesión de Lula en enero, muchos de los seguidores de Bolsonaro invadieron y saquearon las sedes del poder en Brasil en un intento de que los militares tomaran el control del gobierno.Aún así, Bolsonaro había autorizado la transición y, durante los primeros meses de la presidencia de Lula, pasó a un segundo plano en la política brasileña al mudarse temporalmente a Florida. Bolsonaro ahora está de regreso en Brasil y ha estado haciendo más apariciones públicas.Sus abogados han argumentado que su discurso ante los diplomáticos, que está en el centro de este caso, fue un “acto de gobierno” destinado a plantear preocupaciones legítimas sobre la seguridad de las elecciones. Señalaron que los diplomáticos no pueden votar y argumentaron que el discurso no interfirió con el proceso electoral.Ni el abogado de Bolsonaro ni su vocero respondieron a las solicitudes de comentarios.Qué sigue: Bolsonaro enfrenta un juicio y muchas otras investigacionesDespués de comenzar el 22 de junio, el juicio de Bolsonaro probablemente continuará en otras sesiones judiciales programadas para el 27 y el 29 de junio. Los siete jueces del panel del tribunal electoral —compuesto por jueces del Supremo Tribunal Federal, jueces federales y abogados— podrían decidir el caso rápidamente, con una mayoría simple necesaria para condenar. El tribunal electoral está programado para entrar en un receso de un mes en julio.Independientemente del resultado del juicio, Bolsonaro enfrenta otros 15 casos en el tribunal electoral, incluidos los que involucran acusaciones de que usó fondos públicos de manera indebida para influir en la votación y que su campaña realizó una campaña de desinformación coordinada contra Lula. Una condena en cualquier caso también podría considerarlo inelegible para el cargo durante ocho años.Bolsonaro también es objeto de una investigación penal federal sobre la invasión de edificios gubernamentales de Brasil el 8 de enero. Un importante fiscal brasileño lo acusó de alentar a la turba. Una condena en el caso podría conducir a tiempo en prisión. Como parte del caso, Bolsonaro testificó en abril ante la policía federal.Letícia Casado More

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      Republicans Are No Longer Calling This Election Program a ‘Godsend’

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      To hear many Republicans tell it, American elections are awash in incompetence and fraud: shady precinct workers, dead people voting, unverifiable mail-in ballots and so on — and that was even before the Jan. 6 insurrection. Virtually all of the stories are exaggerated, misleading or simply false. And genuine voter fraud is extraordinarily rare. Still, Republican officials have for a long time rightly insisted on the importance of election integrity. So why are so many of them rejecting what was, until a few months ago, widely agreed to be the single best program for shoring up that integrity?Over the past 18 months, eight Republican-led states (with more likely to follow) have resigned their membership in the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan data clearinghouse that helps states keep their voter rolls accurate and up-to-date.Before we get into the groundless conspiracy theories that led to this mass exodus, consider the sheer logistical challenge of maintaining voter rolls in a country of more than 330 million people. Americans have a tendency to move, within a state or between states, often forgetting to update their voter registration along the way. Sooner or later, they die. The result is that the rolls of many states are littered with errors: People who are unintentionally registered in more than one place or who remain on the books after they’ve departed a state or this world. In 2012 as many as one in eight voter registrations nationwide was invalid or highly inaccurate, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts, which helped form ERIC that year as part of its data-based approach to public policy debates.Because of our decentralized election system, the responsibility to sort out this mess falls to the states. Federal and state laws require states to maintain accurate voter rolls, but the states have no established way to communicate and coordinate with one another. The existence of searchable voter data itself is relatively new: As recently as 2000, only seven states had computerized statewide voter databases.In short, it’s easy to proclaim that free, fair and well-run elections are the lifeblood of democracy; it’s a lot harder to put that ideal into practice. One early effort, like the Interstate Crosscheck program, failed miserably because of inadequate data analysis and poor security practices. ERIC has succeeded by devoting the time, money and expertise necessary to build a comprehensive, secure and useful database of voter information. That information — drawn from voter rolls, D.M.V. records, Social Security death records and change-of-address data — gets analyzed, matched and compiled into reports that are provided to the states to help them clean up their rolls.The work has paid off: Through April 2023, ERIC has identified nearly 12 million voters who moved across state lines, more than 24 million whose in-state registrations required updates, more than 1 million in-state duplicates and nearly 600,000 dead people who had not been removed from the rolls. In addition, ERIC requires that member states reach out to eligible but unregistered voters, although it is difficult to determine just how many new voters have signed up as a result.ERIC did all of this in a true example of bipartisanship. “It’s a place where red and blue states were able to come together, have this really boring but really effective data system for keeping the right people on the rolls and removing the wrong people from the rolls,” said Danielle Lang, the senior director of the voting-rights program at the Campaign Legal Center.The reviews, especially from Republicans, were glowing. When Florida joined ERIC in 2019, Gov. Ron DeSantis said it was “the right thing to do for our state, as it will ensure our voter rolls are up-to-date and it will increase voter participation in our elections.” This year, Iowa’s Republican secretary of state called ERIC a “godsend”; his counterpart in Ohio said it was “one of the best fraud-fighting tools that we have.” By 2022, 31 states and the District of Columbia had signed up to pay the organization’s $25,000 membership fee. (States also pay annual dues based on their voting-age population.)Given the level of baseless hysteria surrounding voting, maybe it was too much to expect it all to last. In January 2022, the extreme right-wing website Gateway Pundit published a series of articles accusing ERIC of being “essentially a left-wing voter registration drive disguised as voter roll cleanup.” It claimed that the program was funded by George Soros — eternally the dark mastermind of every liberal corruption in the right-wing mind-set — and described one of its founders, David Becker, as a “hard-core leftist.” (Mr. Soros has given money to Pew but not to ERIC, not that it really matters.) Gateway Pundit also strongly suggested, without the slightest proof, that ERIC was somehow connected to Democratic Party databases.None of this should have been too surprising for a website that continually traffics in the most outlandish election conspiracies and is every so often labeled false or “pants on fire” by fact-checking organizations like PolitiFact.But the misinformation worked. One week later, Louisiana dropped out of the program and didn’t give a clear reason.Other states, all Republican-led, began to follow, each with dubious rationales. Some said they didn’t like being required to spend money to reach out to unregistered voters, who they believed (wrongly) are more likely to vote for Democrats. Others cited the Soros conspiracy theory. Florida officials cited undefined “partisan tendencies” and concerns about data security (though ERIC has never had a data breach). The basic theme of all the complaints was distilled in a social-media post by Donald Trump, who claimed in March that ERIC “pumps the rolls” for Democrats.If so, it’s doing a poor job, Mr. Becker pointed out. “I hate to tell Democrats this, but ERIC is not delivering them elections,” he said. “Florida joined just before 2020 and then had the greatest Republican rout in history.”Mr. Becker, who served as a nonvoting member of ERIC’s board until his term expired this year, flagged a deeper flaw in the departing states’ reasoning: They control ERIC, along with the other member states. All the states were fully aware of the terms and costs of the agreement when they joined. If they want to change the way ERIC functions, it’s entirely within their power to offer a proposal and hold a vote, as they have done many times.There is, of course, a far simpler explanation for the Republican desertion of ERIC: politics. Many of the officials who have pulled their states out of ERIC are running for higher office, and that means appealing to the Republican base, which is still addled by the toxic fumes of Mr. Trump’s “stop the steal” movement. (Cleta Mitchell, an election lawyer who was central to Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss, has been a leading advocate of the ERIC exodus.) Under the persistent influence of the former president, most Republican voters have been conditioned to view all electoral outcomes that don’t go their way as de facto illegitimate.Republicans who are not running for higher office, on the other hand, seem to have no trouble defending ERIC. “Making policy choices based on misinformation is the worst,” said Gabe Sterling, a top election official in Georgia, which joined ERIC in 2019 and is happy to stick with it. “We’re already under pressure, but our calculus is what’s best for the voters of Georgia, because that’s our job.”The problem is that, as the only game in town, ERIC works best when more states join. States that have resigned no longer have a good way to analyze or share their voter data, and states that remain will receive less useful reports (and will pay more money) because the pool of participants is smaller. In short, everyone loses.“The very actors who said they care about list maintenance the most are now abandoning the only tool they had available,” said Ms. Lang. “It seems like the goal is to create chaos — to lead to bloated rolls so they can point at them and say, ‘Look at the problem we have,’ even though it’s a problem entirely of their own making.”That would seem to be a paradox, but it turns out it’s the whole point.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      These Activists Distrust Voting Machines. Just Don’t Call Them Election Deniers.

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      As election activists rally against new voting machines, they are drifting into territory now dominated by conspiracy theorists.For decades, Lulu Friesdat made election integrity her life’s work. Drawing support from activists and academics, she co-founded Smart Elections, a nonpartisan group that is opposed to some voting machines that Ms. Friesdat believes would increase wait times and cost a small fortune to purchase and maintain.But since 2020, things have changed. Former President Donald J. Trump catapulted concerns about voting machines into the Republican mainstream by falsely claiming that the 2020 election was rigged, partly because of electronic voting machines.Election integrity advocates, like Ms. Friesdat, now find themselves in an uncomfortable position, pushing for election security while sometimes amplifying claims made most vocally by conspiracy theorists, including those involved in the so-called Stop the Steal movement.Some election activists warn that election machines could be hacked or compromised, for example, while some conspiracy theorists say, without evidence, that those hacks have already taken place. Election officials say no hacks have taken place.Misinformation watchdogs say that the somewhat overlapping arguments illustrate another consequence of Mr. Trump’s false and exaggerated voter fraud claims, which have led to doubts about election integrity among a wide swath of the American public. Ms. Friesdat and other activists like her fear that their work may become too closely tied to conspiracy theorists and Mr. Trump’s cause, making potential allies, like progressives, wary of joining the fight.“If you read an article that says that these voting machines are coming in, and people’s concerns about these issues are very similar to those of the Stop the Steal movement, then it makes it very hard for Democrats to work on this issue,” Ms. Friesdat said. “And it has nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with the Stop the Steal movement.”Misinformation watchdogs say that the two movements could erode trust in American elections even further, intentionally or not, because conspiracy theorists tend to exaggerate legitimate criticisms to rile up supporters and raise questions about the entire electoral system.“You sow a seed of doubt, and that will grow and fester into a conspiracy theory,” said Tim Weninger, a computer science professor at the University of Notre Dame who studies misinformation on social media. “It always starts off with one untruth, and that grows into two untruths, and that grows into more, and before long you have an entire conspiracy theory on your hands.”The debate has played out nationally as multiple states have faced pushback on electronic voting machines. It is now happening in New York, where officials are considering certifying new voting machines made by Election Systems & Software, a manufacturer based in Omaha. The company has been targeted in Mr. Trump’s voting fraud narrative, alongside competitors like Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic. Yet, ES&S and its machines have also come under scrutiny by election activists and security experts.The new machines, ExpressVote XL, use an “all-in-one” design: Voters make their selections on a 32-inch touch-screen, which also prints their votes on a narrow summary card. Unlike a traditional ballot, the card records the votes in bar codes at the top of the paper, which the machine reads electronically, followed by a written summary of each pick.How the ExpressVote XL WorksImages shared by the Pennsylvania government show how the ExpressVote XL uses summary cards instead of traditional ballots. More

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      Atlanta Prosecutors Contact Firms That Consulted With Trump Campaign

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      The two companies were hired in 2020 to investigate voter fraud, but reported that they found no proof that significant fraud had occurred.Prosecutors in Atlanta investigating election interference by Donald J. Trump and his allies recently contacted two consulting companies that were hired by the Trump campaign in 2020 to research myriad claims of vote fraud but ended up finding no proof that significant fraud had occurred, according to people with knowledge of the investigation.Despite the findings of the two companies, Simpatico Software Systems and Berkeley Research Group, Mr. Trump continues to this day to make false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, even though no credible evidence has emerged to support that and many of his election conspiracy theories have been debunked.The interest in the companies and their work in Georgia and several other battleground states could be used by prosecutors to undercut claims by Mr. Trump and his allies that they had legitimate grievances about the election. The firms had previously been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors. The latest development regarding prosecutors in Atlanta was reported earlier by The Washington Post.Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., is weighing an array of potential charges against Mr. Trump, including whether he violated state laws with his post-election phone calls to state officials, including a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in which Mr. Trump said he needed to “find” 11,780 votes, or one more than his margin of defeat in the state. Ms. Willis is looking into a number of other post-election moves by the Trump team, including a plan to create a slate of fake electors pledged to Mr. Trump despite President Biden’s victory in Georgia. More than half of the electors have taken immunity deals.A special grand jury that heard evidence in the case for roughly seven months recommended more than a dozen people for indictments, and its forewoman strongly hinted in an interview with The New York Times in February that Mr. Trump was among them. Ms. Willis will need to seek any indictments from a regular grand jury, and has indicated that she will do so in the first half of August.Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor and law professor at the University of Alabama, said that Ms. Willis is probably interested in the companies’ failure to find significant fraud because it could help establish that Mr. Trump acted with criminal intent.If Ms. Willis does bring charges, Ms. Vance said, she will have to prove “that Trump knew that he lost the election and was in essence not asking them to find legitimate votes, but asking them to steal votes for him.”Both Ms. Willis’s office and the two companies declined to comment.During the House Jan. 6 committee’s proceedings last year, several Trump aides and allies testified that it was clear that there had been no fraud sufficient to change the outcome of the voting.One of the campaign’s lawyers, Alex Cannon, who was a contact point for Simpatico, told Mr. Trump’s son Eric around Thanksgiving 2020 that fraud claims coming in were largely unreliable, according to testimony Mr. Cannon gave to House investigators in their inquiry into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.Asked whether Eric Trump “expressed any dismay or concern about the conclusion that you were sharing with him,” Mr. Cannon said, “I think he was dismayed. I think that’s a fair characterization.” Mr. Cannon added that more senior campaign lawyers were “not surprised” that the vast majority of claims were unfounded.By the time the slate of fake electors convened in Atlanta on Dec. 14, 2020, Mr. Trump had already lost three different counts of the vote and the state’s Republican leadership had certified the outcome.Federal prosecutors, who are conducting criminal investigations of Mr. Trump independent of the Georgia inquiry, have also been focusing on whether Mr. Trump and his aides knew that he had lost the race but continued to use bogus claims of election fraud to raise money from Trump supporters, in potential violation of federal wire fraud statutes.Ken Block, the owner of the Rhode Island-based Simpatico Software, has previously said that he received a subpoena for documents from federal prosecutors. Immediately after the election, he said, a Trump campaign adviser asked him to evaluate specific allegations of election fraud in six states — Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin. Mr. Block said that his company disproved all of the allegations “and found no substantive fraud sufficient to overturn an election result.” His company was paid $735,000 for the work.Soon after hiring Simpatico, the Trump campaign hired Berkeley Research Group, a California-based consulting firm that focuses on corporate finance and investigations. A federal grand jury has received evidence that Berkeley was hired at the suggestion of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, who was overseeing the political operation.In late April, The New York Times reported that the federal grand jury had been asking questions about whether Mr. Trump was briefed on the results of the Berkeley Research investigation, which also found no evidence of widespread fraud. The company was paid about $600,000 for its work, records show. More