By Ricardo Brito
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s federal audit court (TCU) asked the Defense Ministry on Tuesday to provide its report on Brazil’s electronic voting machines used during this month’s election, which President Jair Bolsonaro has attacked baselessly as vulnerable to fraud.
The TCU sought a copy of the report in a request seen by Reuters and said that after a military inspection of the voting machines on election day, “state security will be strengthened with the disclosure of such information.”
The TCU press office confirmed it had made the request. The Defense Ministry and presidential press office did not reply to requests for comment.
Brazilian media reported the Defense Ministry has refused to disclose the findings of its review or comment on its status.
Newspaper O Globo reported on Tuesday that the ministry had told Bolsonaro that the inspection of the results from 385 machines had found nothing irregular, but the president did not authorize a public disclosure of their findings.
The O Globo report, in a column, was based on the accounts of three unnamed generals, one of whom said Bolsonaro had asked the military to look further for irregularities.
Bolsonaro has criticized the electronic voting machines and the Supreme Court justices that run the national electoral authority for opposing a return to paper ballots. There has never been fraud detected in the electronic system and Bolsonaro has failed to present new evidence of such a risk.
Bolsonaro has charged that the justices favor his leftist rival, former president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, stirring fears that he could contest the result if he is defeated.
Lula led the first round of the presidential election with 48% of the votes to Bolsonaro’s 43% and the race now goes to an Oct. 30 runoff vote.
After outperforming most polls in the first-round vote, Bolsonaro has muted his criticisms of the voting system.
TSE electoral officials agreed to military involvement in vetting the security of the electronic voting machines and making spot checks of their results on election day.
The TSE said it has not heard from the Defense Ministry of its findings after the vote.
The TCU audit court, which reports to Brazil’s Congress, also audited the results of 4,000 electronic voting machines in state capitals across Brazil and found no differences with the official TSE results.
The Defense Ministry has 15 days to reply to the TCU request for its report.
(Reporting by Ricardo Brito and Anthony Boadle; Editing by Brad Haynes and Alistair Bell)
