Bolsonaro asked for voting system to be tampered with, hacker says

Brasilia, Aug 17 (EFE).- Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro asked a computer programmer to hack into Brazil’s Electoral Justice networks to strengthen his claims that the electronic voting system was not reliable, the hacker told a parliamentary commission Thursday.

Walter Delgatti, who worked for a right-wing congresswoman, told the committee investigating the Jan. 8 riots by Bolsonaro’s supporters at Brazil’s government and democratic institutions that the former far-right leader had even promised to pardon him if he was caught and arrested.

Bolsonaro, who was in power from 2019 to 2022, repeatedly made claims of electoral fraud in the wake of his defeat in to Lula da Silva in last year’s election, without ever producing evidence.

Delgatti also said that Bolsonaro had asked him to create a fake ballot box to prove that the system was fraudulent and to upload a fake arrest warrant against judge Alexandre de Moraes, the president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).

The TSE banned Bolsonar from holding political office for eight years for his claims that Brazil’s electronic voting system, which have been in use since 1996, were fraudulent. EFE

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