Engineer Carlos Rocha, 70, says he is still trying to understand why he ended up in the investigation into the coup plot promoted by allies of the former president ().
“What the hell am I involved with generals? I have nothing to do with it. I’m not a militant, I was suddenly surprised by this situation”, he says in an interview with Sheet.
He is the founder and president of Instituto Voto Legal, which in 2022 was hired by the PL to evaluate electronic voting machines, amid Bolsonaro’s campaign to discredit the voting system.
According to the PF, Rocha’s work helped to support coup theories, which culminated in a plan that would include the assassination of the president (), the vice president () and the minister, of the (Supreme Federal Court).
and that it has no control over the political use made of it by the PL.
He also states that he never spoke of fraud and that he only intends to collaborate constructively with the Superior Electoral Court to improve the ballot box.
Mr. says he did technical work, but the PF claims that this helped stimulate coup movements. How do you respond?
It was a technical work, based on documentary information. For each item we present there is a context, the criteria used, the documentary evidence.
The PL, which hired you, had a clear agenda against the ballot box. Couldn’t you imagine that your work would be used politically?
I have no control over what other people will do. I went to do professional work. An audit, an inspection of a system, is a critical challenge in any organization. When I got there to talk to the president [do PL] Valdemar Costa Neto, an unusual thing happened: [ele] He spent 45 minutes explaining to me that he trusted the ballot box.
Why did he hire you?
Because it has become a controversial topic.
Because of Bolsonaro?
No. In all elections, questions arise regarding assertiveness and transparency.
But Mr. Do you agree that, if Bolsonaro had not insisted on this topic, it would not have been an issue?
I agree that President Bolsonaro could have dealt with this issue differently, with diplomacy. This is an essentially technical topic. What gives me a lot of peace of mind is that every time a technical group carried out an analysis, a diagnosis and a set of suggestions for improvement, they said things very similar to what we said.
Mr. Do you regret doing this work?
No. I have always exercised citizenship. Why we created the Institute [Voto Legal]? Because political parties have the prerogative to carry out inspections the way they want. And they can set up their own system to monitor. Since 1996 we have had elections with . Why haven’t the parties turned this into a natural process?
Maybe because they don’t suspect the urn?
It’s not about trust in people. If that were true, the TCU would not audit it. Does the TCU audit because the employees are criminals? No, because people make mistakes. This is what happened, we found errors in the log [registro da urna]Does that mean there was fraud? No. It means there is evidence to be evaluated. It could be a programming error. The TCU talks about low software development governance. Maybe these things in life have a reason. We just went through an election that went unchallenged. Are there improvements that can be made between now and the 2026 elections?
Mr. says in his defense that his work was used politically by the PL. What do you think of that?
I have no control over what other people do. What we did was work of the highest quality, unprecedented, pioneering in Brazil, which needs to be done. The electoral system is good. The TSE technical team is a good team. Does that mean they are infallible? Of course. Does that mean it can’t be improved? Of course. It is always possible to improve. But this process needs to get out of this political dichotomy.
According to the PF report, technician Eder Balbino, subcontracted by his institute to do the work (and called by Valdemar de “”)contested a central point, which was the impossibility of identifying the log of the oldest ballot boxes. This would show that Mr. he was warned that there would be no problem and insisted on it for spurious purposes.
In a newspaper, eventually the editor or director has a different view from the journalist who wrote the article, right? In audit work it is the same. What is my role? Coordinator. How many people did I talk to to release the report? 15? 18? Do we imagine that everyone agrees on everything? Of course.
Was there a disagreement then?
This is a dichotomy that was initially raised by TSE technicians and the police understood it and are insisting. We absolutely agree, both with the TSE technicians and with Eder, that there is no difficulty in correlating each log file with the urn that generated it. Then someone asked me: so there’s no problem? Of course there is.
that it is not a flaw, that it does not invalidate.
Everyone has the opinion they think they should have. The link problem is not with the file. It’s from each line, each line is an event. Certain groups of ballot boxes make a mistake because they are different from what they should be. For each line there should be a date and time, what type of information that event is and what the identification number is. Eder doesn’t understand the meaning of electronic voting machines. He understands a lot about statistics and strategic information management. Who understands the ballot box? I understand the ballot box.
In other words, did he exceed the function?
He didn’t extrapolate anything, no. Let’s be clear, Eder is a great professional. It was the subject of a fishing expedition [“pesca de provas”].
Like mr. Do you evaluate the reaction that this case generated from the TSE and the STF?
There is an immense opportunity for improvement. Clearly the ministers who become directors of the TSE have an opportunity to be better informed by people independent of their employees.
Mr. Do you see any climate for this to happen today?
I’m an optimist. We are not questioning any election. The inauguration took place, another government took over. What are we asking for on defense? Look, we did technical work, which is deeply based on documentation.
Can you say there was fraud in the election?
No way. There are signs of malfunction and this is very well documented in the reports and bibliography. Just go there and read.
in which he defends changes to the TSE. Could you explain better?
Electoral administration is a technical-administrative topic. Of the 22 largest democracies on the planet, only 1 links it to the Judiciary, Brazil. In 19, it is independent or an administrative body, with an agency. In our opinion, professionals who have notable legal knowledge and immense qualifications to be ministers of the Supreme Court do not have the technical training necessary for electoral administration. The TSE should be an electoral agency. Then the minister who will judge judges without any conflict of interest.
Like mr. Do you feel like your work is cited as part of a coup plot?
I feel sad. I told the delegate on the day of my testimony: the Federal Police is an absolutely qualified institution. You have highly competent technical expertise there. I would like to have the opportunity to talk to them about our work. It is clear that whoever wrote this report is not from the area. I am an engineer. What the hell am I involved with generals? I have nothing to do with this. I am not an activist, I was suddenly surprised by this situation, but I will be available to clarify. We have absolutely nothing to hide, it is a technical, grounded work.
X-ray | Carlos Rocha, 70
Born in Rio de Janeiro, he graduated in electronic engineering from ITA (Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica) and is president of Instituto Voto Legal. He worked on the development of electronic voting machines in the 1990s and also worked on electoral systems in countries such as the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nigeria, Angola and Ivory Coast.
