The President of the Voting Legal Institute, Carlos Rocha, who was, participated on Thursday (24) of public in the specialist about electronic ballot boxes.
Held at the CCJ (Constitution and Justice Commission), the debate focused on the text of the new Electoral Code, a matter that has been in process in the house ever since.
At the beginning of his presentation, Rocha thanked Senator Esperidião Amin (PP-SC) for the invitation.
According to Senator Marcelo Castro (MDB-PI), rapporteur of the text, the nomination of the engineer’s name for the hearing was made by Senator Rogério Marinho (PL-RN), the opposition leader.
Sought by the report, Marinho’s staff reported that the name of Rocha was sent, with his consent, to the presidency of the CCJ at the request of Senator Amin’s advisory.
In 2022, the Rocha Institute was hired by the PL president, to conduct an audit on the electronic ballot box, amid the former president’s offensive to discredit the (Superior Electoral Court) and voting machines.
He was denounced by PGR as a member of the Strategic Operations Center, which would be responsible for propagating false news about the Brazilian electoral system, attacking institutions and authorities. As he, given that he was the president of the acronym who hired him.
In, at the end of last year, Rocha stated that he did only technical work and has no control over the political use that was made of him by the PL. He also said that he never spoke of electoral fraud and is only the intention of collaborating constructively with the TSE to improve the ballot box.
In his presentation on Thursday, which lasted just over ten minutes, he pointed out as current challenges the concentration of functions in the TSE and the “absence of public count”. He also suggested that the election administration remained in charge of an electoral agency and would be subjected to Congress.
Senator Marcelo Castro made a statement after the presentation, defending the safety of the polls. “The concrete fact we have is that until today a single electronic ballot fraud has not been proven.”
He also said that although Rocha stated that his suggestions would serve to reduce court disputes after the elections, he says there would now be no conflict. “The information I have to date is that there is no single lawsuit today in Brazil of someone who has lost election for fraud in an electronic one,” he said about the 2024 election.
Senator Hamilton Mourão (Republicans-RS) then said he had a distinct opinion from that issued by Castro. “I consider that our electronic ballot boxes deserve to be perfected as any and all system,” he said, quoting the printed vote then.
Like those, including, Rocha is accused of crimes of armed criminal organization, attempted violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law, coup d’état, damage qualified by violence and serious threat against public assets and deterioration of listed heritage.
Rocha was warned by one of his employees regarding the lack of evidence of fraud in the data that, days later, were used by the PL to request the invalidation of votes from the ballot box to the TSE in November 2022.
As for this point, Rocha said in the interview in December that not all people who participate in a job have the same opinion, that he was a coordinator and talked to several people before releasing the report. He also said that the aforementioned employee was a statistical expert, but he was the one who understood electronic ballot boxes.
The receipt of the complaint against him has not yet been tried at the Supreme Court (STF). The court has become 14 accused in the case since March, including the main core of the prosecution, integrated by Bolsonaro and former ministers.
