Engineer Carlos Rocha, president of the Voting Legal Institute (IVL), presented his defense on Wednesday (5) in response to the complaint of the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), which accuses him of participation in one.
The document, filed with the Federal Supreme Court (STF), refutes the accusations, claiming “total absence of concrete evidence” that provides Rocha’s participation in any criminal plan.
In 2022, the IVL was hired by former President Jair Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party (PL) to investigate alleged electronic ballot boxes and support attacks on the results of the presidential election. However, the report produced by the Institute did not show evidence of irregularities at the ballot box. This absence of evidence was also highlighted in the allegation of the former mauro cid orders.
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According to Rocha’s defense, the engineer never used the word “fraud” in his reports, emails, WhatsApp messages or interviews. The lawyers argue that the IVL has acted technically and impartially, following internationally recognized methodologies, such as compliance audits and good governance practices, ensuring that the analyzes were performed with technical rigor.
The defense also points out that, given the lack of evidence in the report, those who did not accept the results of the elections tried to attribute the rock the responsibility for a narrative of fraud. “They unsuccessfully tried to build a narrative without any concrete proof and attribute the rock the role of ‘scapegoat’,” says the document.
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PGR’s complaint against Rocha and 33 others involved accuses them of participation in crimes such as armed criminal organization, attempted violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law and coup d’état.
According to the Attorney, Rocha was aware that the alleged fraud at the ballot box did not existbut still, at a press conference called by the PL, he made statements contrary to the technical information presented by the specialized companies, stating that there were failures in the mechanisms of verification of the oldest polls, made between 2009 and 2015.
Messages exchanged between him and the outsourced company to check the reliability of the electronic voting system show that the accused was aware that the defending thesis was not based on factual confirmation.
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As cited by PGR, on November 30, 2022, at an extraordinary meeting in the Federal Senate, “Carlos Rocha again supported himself in the false ‘studies’ studies on the electronic ballot box, watching attacks on the judiciary”.
In addition to refuting the accusations, Rocha’s defense also asks the Supreme Court to declare the incompetence to judge the case, arguing that it should be sued in the first instance, like any other citizen without privileged forum. However, the case should follow in the Court due to the participation of other accused in the investigated facts who are entitled to the forum by prerogative of function.
Rocha was denounced for crimes that add up to 43 years in prison, along with other figures of the political and military scenario that, according to the PGR, tried to destabilize the electoral process of 2022.
