One of the proposals being debated at the (Superior Electoral Court) is to restrict the inclusion of audios and videos in questionnaires by institutes, on the grounds that this feature could increase the chances of manipulation in voter responses.
The court, however, does not intend to impose an accelerated pace to resume the trial on the issue. The definition should be postponed until at least August — electoral propaganda on the streets and on the internet begins on the 16th of that month.
After censoring one that showed a drop of six percentage points in voting intentions for (-RJ), the president of the TSE, , stated in plenary at the beginning of June that he would invite the institutes for talks, but the meetings have not yet been scheduled. The difficulty would be finding a date for everyone involved to participate in the hearing.
Those around Kassio calculate that the magistrate has the support of the majority of the TSE plenary to approve the regulations that are created.
In the TSE session that began to deal with the topic, he raised concern about the possibility of the presence of audiovisual material, after saying that the institutes must have independence.
“What would be this limit of what is inducement and what is not inducement? This limit cannot be subjective or biased. We have to analyze whether it is possible to carry out research that shows videos or audios and then the person answers questions. It is essential that we say whether this is possible in research”, stated Toffoli.
and Floriano de Azevedo Marques also made comments in defense of stipulating a rule for the electoral process that includes research institutes in the debate.
Until now, measures against publication have been based on criteria such as lack of registration in court, insufficient number of interviewees or lack of prior delivery of the questionnaire.
Kassio censored the Atlas/Bloomberg survey at the request of the PL, which complained about the inclusion of audio from the case “” — in which Flávio charged Daniel Vorcaro, from , money to finance the film about his father, the former president.
AtlasIntel, however, said that the collection of voting intentions took place without the audio being played during the questionnaire. According to the company, the material was only presented at a later stage — and without it being possible to return to the questions or change the answers already recorded.
Some of the TSE ministers understand that the presence of audio and videos in research is not necessarily problematic. A way to deal with the topic in a more lenient way could be to require the recording of the transcription of these materials, in addition to other details at the time of formalizing the surveys.
One wing of the court also cites the possible presentation of a technical report made by experts to assess the possibility of manipulation.
At least three interlocutors from research institutes were, with reservations, concerned about the possibility of the TSE setting restrictions.
This Monday (22), the PGE (Electoral Attorney General’s Office) took a stand against Kassio’s censorship of the Atlas/Bloomberg survey and defended one, arguing that the institutes have methodological autonomy and that there is no legal restriction on the order or content of the inquiries.
The trial has been halted due to a request from Minister Estela Aranha, who should not return the case to the plenary session before dialogue with the institutes.
as to Sheet showed, Kassio tries to build an agreement with the other members of the court to. The censorship was the target of criticism from various political spectrums, including names on the right such as presidential candidates () and (Novo).
“If space is opened to limit the work of institutes and the scope of what can be done in research work, there is a very dangerous path in which public opinion will increasingly be less informed from research institutes about what is happening in the social and political context”, says Andrei Roman, founder and CEO of AtlasIntel.
