The regional electoral courts of Maranhão and Pará signed an agreement to carry out a biometric review next year in three municipalities in Maranhão that registered a significant increase in voters through the transfer of people from Pará.
the TRE-MA Internal Affairs Department identified signs of fraud by analyzing reports of voter transfers to the municipality and the proof of residence documents presented.
The city had 180 transfers cancelled, 143 of which were due to court decisions. Even so, the municipality received transfers for the 2024 elections that increased the total number of eligible voters by 20.3%. There were 1,809 titles from other cities.
The election was decided by 337 votes in favor of Márcio Viana (PSB), with Junior Matos (PL) in second.
The internal affairs department identified that part of the voters arrived in Godofredo Viana and two other cities in Maranhão, Cândido Mendes and Amapá do Maranhão, with titles that were previously registered in Pará.
Therefore, it activated the TRE-PA internal affairs department for joint work, which will take place between June and July next year, with the review of the electorate in the three municipalities through the collection of biometric data.
A Sheet suspicion of widespread fraud in several small and medium-sized cities in the country, with the collective transfer of voters co-opted to vote for certain candidates, which may have been decisive in the election of councilors and mayors.
The main suspicion is that voters from neighboring cities (generally hubs in their regions) have agreed to simulate moving to these small and medium-sized municipalities in exchange for money or benefits offered by the candidates.
Statistical data on the Brazilian electorate, compiled by the Superior Electoral Court (), show in detail the growth in the number of voters in a municipality, but one important piece of information is left out: the municipality of origin of the transferred titles.
Access to this data would make it possible to identify organized migratory flows of voters.
The TSE was contacted, but did not respond to the question about where the securities came from, or even if it has information about this. No technical area of the court said, after more than a month of questioning, where this information could be found.
It is up to each electoral zone to take measures to identify and stop these migratory flows of titles.
The scale of the problem, however, is unknown. The first challenge is for the suspect to be identified and reported.
In addition to the possible lack of data, there is also an advantage for the fraudster: the broad concept of electoral domicile, which is different from civil domicile and much more subjective, allowing transfer with proof of “residential, emotional, family, professional, community or of another nature that justifies the municipality’s choice.”
In Santa Catarina, TRE expanded the concept even further. On its website, it stated that the link can be proven with “any proof of address for any family member residing in the municipality” or even if the voter shows “having been invited to play in a football championship on behalf of a club in the municipality”.
there was a 32% increase in the number of voters just after the transfer of titles, one of the highest percentages in the country.
Defeated re-election candidate in the city, Edgard Farinon (MDB) states that the city has 1,397 residents over the age of 15, but has an official registration of 2,419 voters.
Between 2023 and 2024, 645 people transferred their titles to the municipality.
Edgard Farinon was defeated by Simone Zanella (PL) by a difference of 366 votes. After the defeat, he sued asking for access to the voter list and the documents presented for the transfer of title. The mayor states that the suspicion is of indiscriminate use of electricity bills transferred to the city.
Judge Flávia Carneiro de Paris rejected the request and said that the broad understanding of the TRE-SC means that this practice, if confirmed, would not be irregular.
She also highlighted that the questioning should have been done before the election, and it is now no longer possible to challenge the number of voters that is 80% greater than the number of inhabitants.
which in 2022 had as many residents as voters — around 10 thousand —, 1,670 people requested a mass transfer of their electoral cards to the city in the first months of 2024.
The PP challenged more than 300 titles at once and another 40 in a second wave. In response, the MDB and Avante, which made up the opposing party, presented 100 names that would not have proven ties to the city.
Judge Viviane da Conceição Cardoso rejected around 50 transfers that had already been authorized by the electoral registry, according to the records published in editions of the Electronic Journal of Justice of Bahia, but rejected most of the requests.
The judge argued that “the mere possibility that a document could, in theory, be altered does not constitute evidence of fraud.”
He also highlighted that energy and water concessionaires confirmed the veracity of documents presented and that, from this, the broad concept of electoral domicile is valid.
In the end, the city had 11,828 people able to vote, even with the fact that Rio do Pires has an estimated population of 10,801 residents in 2024.
Zé Marcos, from Avante, beat Hyran Mendonça, from the PSD, by a margin of 708 votes.
