Populist former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, 68, has been banned from running for office for eight years for questioning electronic voting machines in a meeting of diplomats. Bolsonaro’s efforts to get rid of the machines, used throughout the country, and return to hand-counted paper ballots ahead of the 2022 election were thwarted, and he ended up losing a razor-thin contest with 49.1 percent of the vote.
A majority of electoral court judges say Bolsonaro abused his power by raising concerns about the voting machines – which, unusually, received the endorsement of Joe Biden’s administration in the United States while the debate over them was ongoing. Despite assurances to the Brazilians that their machine elections were secure, scientists in the United States have found their own machines are extremely vulnerable.
Bolsonaro’s successor the far-left Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was also previously banned from office after being imprisoned for corruption crimes, including accepting a beachfront apartment in exchange for political favors. A Supreme Court judge controversially annulled his convictions on a technicality ahead of the 2022 election.