by matheusmoreira | 2025-07-19 21:25:32+00:00
> So did Bolsonaro have any basis for claiming the vote against him was rigged? If he did, fair enough.

To start with: voting machines. Surely we need not debate the problems with such technology in Hacker News of all places? I don't really need to elaborate on this matter, right?

Then there's the fact our elected congress tried to add an auditable paper trail to the machines not once but twice and in both instances was overruled by the unelected supreme court. More details here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36543423

> There should be an investigation into the rigging.

And who would investigate such a thing?

One of the supreme court judges, Alexandre de Moraes, was also the head of the so called Electoral Court at the time. Yes, the same guy who's judging Bolsonaro now. He was in charge of the voting machines. I have videos of him proudly proclaiming that the machines are UNQUESTIONABLE. One would think he'd have the balls to publish the source code and hardware schematics and offer a billion dollar bug bounty.

> I genuinely have no idea which of these is true

I'll tell you what I saw.

In the months leading up to the 2022 elections, I personally witnessed these judges interfere with the elections in unprecedented ways. I watched them call everything Bolsonaro and his party said "fake news" and issue countless censorship orders. I view it as something of a nationwide gaslighting campaign.

Suddenly, everything was "fake news". It was "fake news" to say Lula had been imprisoned for corruption, even though he had been. It was "fake news" to say he's friends with communist dictators, even though he is. It was "fake news" to say he's the preferred candidate of the country's organized crime gangs, even though he is. They even deemed it "fake news" to say he's a communist and a socialist himself, even though there's literal video evidence of it. I watched them censor a documentary about the assassination attempt on Boldonaro as "fake news" despite the fact the documentary had not even been released yet. A priori censorship, something not seen in these lands since the military dictatorship of the 20th century.

All this happened even though in Brazil censorship is unconstitutional, especially censorship of political speech. Censorship equals dictatorship, it's that simple. People who protested this have been sent to jail already. Brazilian journalists and even streamers have sought political asylum in the USA because of these events.

People keep talking about Bolsonaro's alleged coup that never actually materialized. They ignore the silent coup perpetrated by these unelected judges. They have been relentlessly grabbing power since at least 2019. Now they have essentially usurped the legislative and the executive branches of government. Yes, they legislate and they execute. They recently decided to make social media companies liable for user content, despite actual laws to the contrary. Just a few days ago they raised taxes on the brazilian population despite our elected congress blocking the taxation.

More details about the supreme court's abuses:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39966382