New president of the (Superior Electoral Court) as of Tuesday (12), is preparing to face questions about the security and reliability of electronic voting machines after the 2022 election.
To people close to him, the judge says he believes it is possible that the issue of the fairness of voting will resurface, the target of a disinformation campaign carried out in recent years by allies of (), responsible for Kassio’s nomination to the (Supreme Federal Court).
To protect himself, the minister asked for a fine-tooth comb in the ballot boxes available for the next elections for the presidents of state electoral courts and will conduct a public test of this type of equipment from Wednesday (13) to Friday (15), shortly after taking office. Electronic voting machines have been in use in the country since 1996, and there has never been a record of fraud.
Successor to the presidency of the TSE, Kassio will command the court in the 2026 elections, which has (PL) as a pre-candidate for Planalto, and has stated that he wants to print a different style than the one he adopted in 2022.
In charge of the electoral court at that time, Moraes was the target of complaints from the Bolsonaro clan due to the removal of content considered false and had to deal with attacks on the electoral system.
During his term, Bolsonaro encouraged a campaign to discredit electronic voting machines with lies and illusions. He repeated conspiracy theories and said, without providing evidence, that there was fraud in the 2018 election and that he had obtained enough votes to win in the first round.
Fearing a repeat of the questions, Kassio has maintained a dialogue on the issues with advisors, local courts, companies and universities to expand the means of security for equipment and vote transmissions and sign agreements in the area of .
One of the measures he intends to combat criticism is to implement a double check of the elections: there will be two voters at the beginning and two voters at the end of the voting day to guarantee the validity of the process — there are not always party inspectors in every location, and these could also be two at any given time.
Furthermore, Kassio established, as rapporteur of the electoral resolutions approved by the court this year, the possibility for the OAB (Brazilian Bar Association) to supervise the entire electoral process directly, a novelty for the election.
The new president of the TSE also wants to gather information on equipment that may have a problem, their age, quantity available in each electoral zone, condition of batteries and components, among other data.
Presidents of TREs (Regional Electoral Courts) have complained about the age of the ballot boxes — the older ones are also a little slower — and asked for a reduction in the proportion of voters per ballot box, to reduce queues, for example.
The ballot boxes have, on average, a useful life of ten years. Now, however, many still in use are from 2013 and will be more used than ideal. In an election year, the TSE does not hold tenders for new purchases.
For cybersecurity agreements, the objective is to expand protection against external intrusions, from electoral offices to the moment votes are transmitted.
Impact of artificial intelligence
On another front, Kassio expressed concern about the impact of the use of , especially so-called deepfakes —videos, audios or images manipulated to simulate real people or situations.
Although deepfakes are prohibited from being used by candidates, there are fears about the difficulty in differentiating genuine material from those manufactured by AI, produced both by campaigns and voters in general.
Kassio has said he is betting on partnerships with universities, to support the Federal Police and meet the demand for expertise to identify manipulations, but admits that it will be a challenge during the election.
In the political field, Kassio tells allies that he wants to take a stance that he considers less interventionist than that of Moraes in the last presidential election. According to his understanding, Justice should not be the protagonist in the debate, but voters and candidates.
In practice, this means a stronger preference for the right of reply rather than orders to remove content. Advisors Kassio assesses that the first option proves to be more efficient, since the second case does not affect the circulation of material through messaging applications, for example.
He has stated internally that he wants his presidency to involve political disputes and that his administration will act to ease the political tension in the country, even though he claims to want the TSE to monitor possible excesses.
This year’s acid test will be the conduct of an election that could put the president (PT) face to face with a member of the Bolsonaro family.
Kassio takes Cármen’s place and will have the minister as vice-president. Both were nominated to the Supreme Court by Bolsonaro and usually vote in a similar way in cases of interest to Bolsonaro supporters in the court and defend freedom of expression in cases of this type.
Until the eve of the first round of elections, the TSE will have as general inspector Minister Antonio Carlos Ferreira, from the STJ (Superior Court of Justice), who also got close to Kassio in recent years and with whom he maintains good dialogue.
The composition of the court during the campaign will also include Dias Toffoli, from , STJ minister Ricardo Villas Bôas Cueva and lawyers Floriano de Azevedo Marques, who is close to Moraes, and Estela Aranha, close to Cármen Lúcia and Flávio Dino.
The TSE is always presided over by one of the three Supreme Court ministers who make up its staff. In addition, there are two members of the STJ and two of the so-called class of jurists, made up of members of the legal profession. The vacancies are rotating.
