“Those are not bugs, those are features termites.” Destroyed voting machines were infested with cupins, according to an early version of this wild and wooly affair.
TRE-AL, the regional elections authority of the state of Alagoas, coastal northeastern Brazil, reports:
O plenário do Tribunal Regional Eleitoral de Alagoas (TRE-AL), reunido nesta terça-feira (22), em sessão ordinária, desaprovou, por unanimidade, as contas de campanha eleitoral referente ao pleito de 2006, apresentadas pelo então candidato ao Senado pelo Partido Democrático Trabalhista (PDT), Ronaldo Augusto Lessa Santos.Também foram desaprovadas as contas da campanha da candidata ao governo do Estado pelo Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), Lenilda Lima da Silva, no mesmo pleito. Foram relatores do primeiro e segundo processo, respectivamente, o juíz Francisco Malaquias de Almeida Júnior e o juiz e corregedor regional eleitoral Leonardo Resende Martins.
The plenary session of the TRE-AL, meeting on May 22, in an ordinary session, unanimously rejected the campaign finance statements of PDT senatorial candidate Ronaldo Lessa for the 2006 election. Also rejected were the campaign finance statements for the PT gubernatorial candidate, Lenilda Lima da Silva, for the same election. Reporting out the two cases, respectively, were Judge Francisco Malaquias de Almeida Júnior and the regional elections oversight officer, Judge Leonardo Resende Martins.
The press release does not explain the grounds for the ruling. On another current case involving campaign finance enforcement, see Press Blackout on Alckmin Cash Cow Case.
João Lyra, a former congressmember from the PSB (Socialist), is suing the sitting governor, Teotônio Vilela (PSDB), for allegedly benefiting from (massive) election fraud involving the electronic voting machine. It is not an absurd accusation.
Lessa, the last governor of the state, opposed impeached former federal president Fernando Collor in the election.
- Alagoas and Ohio: E-Elections on Trial in Alternate Hemispheres
- Alagoas E-Elections: A Mini-Mexico?
- “Do Not Open That Black Box”: Alagoas Guv to Election Muftis
A number of sitting officials in Vilela’s government have been arrested in Operation Straight Razor over alleged kickbacks in public works contracts with the Gautama civil engineering firm of Bahia.
Still pending in Lyra’s suit is a federally authorized battery of testing on the voting machines used in the election.
See Alagoas E-Elections Saga: “Urns” Not in Ashes To Be Tested and Brazil: Alagoas Voting Machine Test Goes Forward.
The previous presiding justice of the TRE-AL, known as “The Little Bull,” was livid over Lyra’s suit and over public remarks Lessa made about alleged bias at the TRE.
Among the complaints: a TRE justice who doubled as a Collor family attorney.
- Alagoas: Elections Evidence In Bonfire of the Vanities?
- Alagoas: Elections Justice Denies Invisible Charges, Visibly Smoldering Evidence
- Alagoas: Lessa Leaps In
See also Brazil: Hurricane Target Was Collor Crony.
Another legal controversy still pending, you see, is the discovery in March of election materials, including electronic components, that had been partially incinerated in a vacant lot near a warehouse belonging to a TRE outside contractor that was in charge of uploading elections software to voting machines.
See The Urnas of Alagoas: Picking Up The Pieces.
It was this case, in large part, that led to the formation of a permanent subcommittee on e-voting in the Brazilian lower house. See Brazil: E-Voting Issues Get An Airing.
O desembargador Estácio de Lima relatou o processo relacionado às contas alusivas às eleições de 2006 tendo como interessado o Comitê Financeiro Único do Diretório Estadual do Partido da Frente Liberal -PFL (atual Democratas). O juiz Francisco Malaquias foi ainda relator da prestação de contas do Diretório Estadual do Partido Popular Socialista (PSP), representado pelo presidente José Régis Barros Cavalcante. Estas contas foram também rejeitadas.Ao juiz José Luciano Guimarães coube relatar o processo de prestação de contas da campanha eleitoral de 2006 do Comitê Financeiro Único do Partido Republicano Brasileiro (PRB), e a juíza Maria Catarina Ramalho foi a relatora no processo de prestação de contas da campanha de 2006 do Comitê Financeiro Único do Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB). Estes dois últimos processos foram aprovados com ressalvas.
Judge Estácio de Lima reported out the proceedings over the accounts of the PFL’s state elections committee for 2006. Judge Francisco Malaquiás was the reporting judge on the accounts rendered by thePopular Socialist Party (PSP) … These accounts were also rejected.
The PRB and the PMDB had their accounts approved, “with reservations.”
Go figure. I follow this case fairly closely and I confess to being completely boggled at the density and volume of the FUD and hysteria that comes out of it.
It’s like trying to work a jigsaw puzzle that keeps rotating through the ninth dimension.
Let me just say that the dramatis personae and the plot twists in this case would put any Mexican soap opera you have ever seen to shame. Some background on that angle:
- Alagoas Techie: Rambling on Elections Wreck
- The AP on the Alagoas E-Vote Controversy: Cribbing Mumbo Jumbo
- “We Creatures Are Imperfect Beings”: An Alagoan Elections Judge Speaks Out
- Alagoas: Tourinho is Shocked! Shocked!
- Alagoas Election Techie: What? Us? Fraud? Naw.
Vilela was forced to call in the feds after the kidnapping of the president of the state’s magistrates association.
Colleagues attributed the kidnapping to the kidnapped judge’s support for the TRE in the elections fraud controversy. See Alagoas: Judge Reported Kidnapped, “Political Motivation” Linked to E-Voting Case Cited.
A judge of an antimafia court operating in the state had also had a family member kidnapped last year — after which the court was hastily recomposed, for reasons that remain unclear to me. See Anarchy in Alagoas: Anti-Anti-Mafia Assassination Outed?
According to a high-ranking state official, the place is getting to be a narco-dominated TAZ:
Drug-trafficking routes through Alagoas are aided by the connivance of members of the public safety community who should instead be out in the street protecting the population, as the police themslves admit. A top senior civil police official accused the traffickers of getting cover from police, municipal guards and prison agents.
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“Esses traficantes têm envolvimento com essas pessoas. Tem policial militar que recebe um valor por semana ou por mês para proteger o traficante.”
“These traffickers are involved with these people. You have military police receiving a certain amount per week or per month to protect the trafficker.”
See Alagoas Calls in the Feds.
My friend at Vi o Mundo thinks that the jogo político is less dog-eat-dog in Brazil than it is in, say, Venezuela or Peru.
I am not so sure.
The New Market Machines 