They harbored suspicion of certain municipalities.
The main suspicion of the Public Ministry and Justice, which investigate cases spread across several states in the country, is that candidates for councilor and mayor co-opted voters from outside their cities by offering money or benefits.
The objective would be to increase their votes through the fraudulent maneuver. In small and medium-sized municipalities, fraud, which has already occurred in previous ones, may have been decisive in defining results.
See step by step how the supposed scheme works:
Voter co-optation
In general, candidates who use this maneuver seek to convince voters from neighboring locations to transfer their voter registration card to their city, by offering money or benefits, such as positions in a future administration.
Fraud candidates are typically from small and medium-sized cities and seek these voters in larger municipalities.
The resolution of the (Superior Electoral Court) which provides for the management of electoral registration () requires the voter, to change their electoral domicile, to present one or more documents proving residential, emotional, family, professional, community or other ties. with the new municipality.
The fraud
Investigations show that, in a large number of suspected cases, voters transferred or attempted to transfer their electoral domicile using proof or false information of ties to the new city.
In several cities, bills were presented from micro telephone companies, which do not check the address provided by the customer, falsified consumption bills (water and electricity), among other methods.
In cases where suspicious transfers are reported by competing candidates or by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the electoral judge may determine measures, such as the police going to the address provided to check whether the citizen actually lives there. When fraud is detected in this case, the transfer is cancelled.
When an attempted transfer via false documentation or information is discovered at the time of the request, the voter may be arrested red-handed.
The impacts
Data from the TSE show that 717 cities in the country had their voters increase by 10% or more in the 2024 elections only with the transfer of voters from other cities (that is, excluding new titles taken, for example, by those aged 16 to 18 years old).
Of this group, 82 municipalities —most with less than 10 thousand inhabitants— had a voter increase of between 20% and 46%, most of them registering a greater number of formal voters than the entire population counted by the (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistic).
Examples
It has 1,656 residents, according to the 2022 Census, which includes children and teenagers who don’t vote, but the official electorate is 1,754, thanks to a 17% increase just with the transfer of titles.
The candidate elected mayor had just 1 vote difference in relation to his competitor and is the target of the Public Ministry precisely on the accusation of having fraudulently sponsored the transfer of more than 60 voters from other municipalities to Fernão.
Divino das Laranjeiras, in the east of Minas Gerais, a municipality with 4,178 inhabitants, has 4,968 people eligible to vote. On October 4, the Federal Police launched Operation Suffrage to investigate the suspected fraudulent transfer of around a thousand titles to the city.
In Elesbão Veloso (PI), the PF launched Operation Águas Rasas due to suspected fraud in 126 title transfers to the city, all using false receipts. According to the police, the person suspected of producing the documents was a public servant and candidate for councilor.
from TV Globo, showed signs that there was also an illegal voter market in Mangaratiba, a resort in Rio de Janeiro that also gained thousands of new voters.
The state with the largest number of municipalities that increased the number of people eligible to vote by more than 20% is Goiás. There were 19, including Guarinos, the champion in growth (46%), and Davinópolis, where the official electorate (4,405 ) is more than twice the size of the entire population counted by IBGE.
Isn’t it TSE?
In a speech and interview this Monday (9), the president of the TSE, minister Cármen Lúcia, ignored evidence, mixed information and demonstrated ignorance about the PF investigations.
The 2021 TSE resolution establishes that the court can determine ex officio to review the electorate of municipalities in some situations, including if the total transfers occurred in the current year is 10% higher than in the previous year and if the electorate is higher to 80% of the population projected by IBGE.
The court or TREs may also determine the correctness of the electorate (a step prior to review) in some cases, including if “there is consistent evidence or a substantiated complaint of fraud or other irregularities in the registration in a zone or municipality”.
All of these actions cannot take place during an election year and are subject to the existence of available resources. THE Sheet asked the TSE for data on correction and voter review in recent years and those planned for 2025, but there has still been no response.
Punishments
The fraudulent transfer of a reader’s title is an electoral crime, generally covered by articles 289 and 290 of the , with penalties of up to 5 years in prison, plus a fine.
