Some cities chose mayors in October with a tight score and amid a series of suspicions of fraud due to the massive arrival of voters from other municipalities.
Investigations by electoral authorities and mutual accusations between competing parties point to a flood of transfers based on receipts issued by micro telephone companies attesting to a voter’s address that, in reality, is false.
These slips are accepted as proof of address by the Electoral Court, which generally authorizes citizens to vote in the city they claim to have moved to.
there is a suspicion of widespread fraud in several small and medium-sized cities in the country through the collective transfer of voters co-opted to vote for certain candidates, which may have been decisive in the election of councilors and mayors.
The main suspicion is that voters from neighboring cities (generally hubs in their regions) have agreed to pretend to change their residence to these small and medium-sized municipalities in exchange for money or benefits offered by the candidates.
In the case of three cities in Piauí, the municipality supposedly “supplying” voters was Picos.
In one of these cities, the two competitors exchanged accusations of co-opting voters from other cities to try to fraudulently inflate their respective votes. In another, audios attached to the process show candidates saying they had committed fraud.
São Luis do Piauí, for example, is a small city with 2,309 inhabitants counted by the 2022 Census. Only in 2023 and 2024, however, did it receive the transfer of 1,201 electoral titles, impacting a very disputed election and becoming the second city in the country with the greater growth in voters only through titles coming from other cities (45%).
Renato Pio (PP) beat Josafá Marques (PT) by a difference of 32 votes, obtaining his fifth term.
PT and PP presented, against each other, complaints of illegal co-optation of voters from other cities, which led to an investigation by the Public Ministry, which has not yet been concluded by the Electoral Court, and by the Federal Police.
The Prosecutor’s Office requests the cancellation of the transfers of 67 voters. The investigation report points out, for example, that in May a father, mother and son were arrested red-handed for trying to transfer their electoral homes to the city with a falsified electricity bill.
In several cases, voters presented proof of residence issued by the same cell phone operator, Start Cell, which said it had issued them for sales made at the counter of its store, which is in Picos, but did not present the invoices to the Court. requested.
The company confirmed that it does not check whether the address declared by the consumer is true.
A similar situation happened in Santo Inácio do Piauí. There, the Public Prosecutor’s Office identified, after an anonymous complaint, several transfers justified with invoices from another micro telephone company, Alves Telecom, used as proof of address.
In the process, the landline company said that it would not be able to prove the contractual relationship with customers either because the technician “forgot” to take the contract on the day of installation or because he arrived at the address and could not find the customer for whom he generated the invoice. .
Alves Telecom said, during the process, that it changed the way it operates in 2024 after identifying a “flood” of requests to change ownership in Santo Inácio.
In a ruling published last week, judge Luiz de Moura Correia cited the case of an investigator who provided, as proof of residence, “a water bill in the name of his father, who, as he himself states, passed away in 2018, the which causes perplexity.”
In the city, which received 350 new titles between 2023 and 2024, Dr. Auro (PT) won by 331 votes in the dispute against Francisco Átila (PSB).
In last week’s decision, 12 title transfers were annulled, including that of four people who claimed to be Átila’s domestic employees.
In Aroeiras do Itaim, a city also close to Picos, the MDB questioned in court in February all 458 title transfers carried out so far during the year.
He claimed, in the process, that the city had 2,690 inhabitants in the 2022 Census, but already had 3,937 voters. A single microtelephone company, Progressonet, also issued most of the address proofs presented to the Electoral Court.
In the week before the election, judge Adelmar de Sousa Martins denied the immediate cancellation of the transfers, stating that an individual and more careful investigation was necessary to determine whether “the irregularities highlighted actually occurred”. According to him, denying the right to vote to 458 people without the right to vote would be a violation of the principle of due legal process. Since then, voters have been contacted one by one.
On election day, 4,402 people were able to vote in Aroeiras.
Marciano Macedo (PSD) beat the MDB candidate, Wesley de Deus, representative of the family that has run the city for 20 years, by 339 votes.
In Bom Princípio do Piauí, a city close to Parnaíba, WhatsApp audios attached to a process at the Electoral Court show councilors discussing who would be able to transfer more titles to the city.
“Today we took a group of 70, 80 people to fix the title, while they were there [adversários] They took about 10, 15. In terms of transferring titles, arranging titles, the difference is very big. Today I was there, Jailson, Germarcio, Zé do Chico Bento, Junior do Milhão, I was going to take, bring, pick up”, says Jacinto Moraes (MDB), then president of the Chamber, in one of the audios.
The audios were presented to the Court by the PSB, which managed to annul 17 title transfers and elected Mayor Apolinário with 3,196 votes, against 2,680 for Lucas Moraes (MDB), candidate for re-election and son of the then president of the Chamber. Jailson (PT) and Germarcio (PSD), mentioned in the audio, were elected councilors.
A Sheet He searched for all candidates suspected of participating in electoral fraud, but was unable to locate them or there was no demonstration.
Suspected voter transfer fraud
What is the suspicion
The Federal Court and the Federal Police are investigating the block transfers of voting domiciles of voters in small and medium-sized cities, which may have been decisive for the election of mayors and councilors.
Examples in SP and MG
In Fernão, 400 km from São Paulo, candidate Bill (PL) was elected mayor with a difference of just 1 vote in relation to Zé Fodra (PSD): 522 votes to 521. The city’s official electorate grew 17% just with the transfer of titles, which meant that the number of eligible voters was greater than the total number of residents.
Another case occurred in Divino das Laranjeiras, in the south of Minas Gerais. The city has 4,178 inhabitants, according to the 2022 Census, having shrunk by 15.4% compared to the previous survey in 2010. In the case of the official electorate, however, the opposite occurred: a growth of 15.6% compared to the previous election , reaching 4,968 people.
What would fraud look like?
To transfer their voting location, the voter must prove residential, emotional, family, professional or community ties with the new city. According to investigations, there is evidence of the use of electricity, water and sewage bills as false proof of residence issued by public servants.
What is the punishment for voters
If irregularities are proven, voters may be subject to articles 289 and 290 of the Electoral Code, with penalties of 2 to 5 years in prison plus a fine.
