The president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) and minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Cármen Lúcia, led, on the afternoon of this Tuesday (10), the ceremony of digital signature and sealing of electoral systems for the 2024 municipal elections. Both acts are part of the electoral calendar and are provided for in a TSE resolution (nº 23.673/2021), which regulates the inspection and audit procedures for the electronic voting system.
During the event, at the court’s headquarters in Brasília, Minister Cármen Lúcia highlighted that the ballot boxes are reliable. “There’s no point in trying to plant [dúvidas] why [o sistema] It has already been tested several times. In all the tests carried out, there has been a true proclamation of the inviolability of the ballot box, the security of the electoral process, the guarantee to all citizens that they are free in that booth, that they are solely responsible for their vote and that each municipality, each Brazilian state and Brazil itself depends on this vote.”
Cármen Lúcia stressed the civic responsibility of each citizen in choosing mayors and councilors and invited Brazilians to go to the polls on October 6, in the first round of elections, and on October 27, in municipalities where there is a second round.
“Democracy is a life experience that we practice every day and, on October 6, this practice is put in the names of almost 156 million Brazilians who can and should vote. This call to vote is an invitation for each person to take responsibility for this Brazil.”
Supervisory entities
The ceremony was attended by entities that oversee electronic voting systems that ensure the transparency of the electoral process. These included political parties, the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), the public prosecutor’s office, the Federal Police and the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin).
The president of the OAB, Beto Simonetti, said that the digital signature and the sealing of the systems, in the presence of society, symbolize the fairness and security of the electoral process. “In the elections, we do not have a party, we do not have a candidate and, much less, we are in opposition. Our mission is to defend the interests of the legal profession and citizenship, by guaranteeing the application of the law and the supremacy of the popular will”, he said.
According to the TSE, the digital signature ensures that the software that will be used in the electronic ballot box has not been intentionally modified or has not lost its original characteristics due to a failure in recording or reading. Therefore, this step represents a guarantee that the file has not been modified. The procedure also proves the authenticity of the program, confirming its official origin, the TSE itself.
Sealing
The president of the TSE also sealed the electoral systems. Minister Cármen Lúcia signed the non-rewritable media (DVDs) of the programs that will be used in the electronic voting machines in the two rounds of the October elections.
The media were then stored in three envelopes physically signed by Cármen Lúcia; and also by the minister of the STF and director of the Electoral Judicial School of the TSE, Cristiano Zanin; by the deputy attorney general for Electoral matters of the Federal Public Ministry (MPF), Alexandre Espinosa; directors of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin), Luiz Fernando Correia and of the Federal Police (PF), Andrei Rodrigues; president of the OAB, Beto Simonetti, and the member of Podemos, Marcela Fonseca, as a representative of political parties.
The president of the TSE said that sealing the system closes any possibility of circumventing it, after its integrity has been tested.
“The ballot box is absolutely safe, reliable to the system, integral to the Brazilian electoral process, and therefore consistent with the Constitution [Federal] guarantees that each voter, freely, will be able to choose who will represent them, in the next term of councilors and mayors” guaranteed the president of the TSE, minister Cármen Lúcia.
Subsequently, two of the three sealed envelopes with labels signed by the authorities were stored in a safe room at the TSE, in the federal capital. The third envelope was delivered to the TSE’s Secretary of Information Technology, Júlio Valente, for presentation to the oversight entities that expressed interest.
Source codes
The event also marked the completion, this Monday (9), of the compilation of the source codes for the electronic voting systems that will be used in the 2024 elections.
The electronic voting machine source code is a set of instructions that are followed by the electoral systems, developed by the TSE. It is what determines how the program will work.
These electronic voting machine source codes have been made available to regulatory entities for inspection, analysis and testing since October 2023.
In total, there were 40 stages of monitoring the electoral system throughout this period, which was extended to almost a year to receive suggestions for improvements. In the previous electoral cycle, the 2022 majoritarian elections, the deadline was six months.
In the coming days, copies of the software The data from the system, securely locked in the TSE vault, will be sent to the Regional Electoral Courts (TREs) of the 26 states where elections will be held in October. The systems will then be inserted into the electronic ballot boxes that will be sent to all municipalities in the country.
The TSE states that the systems’ security devices guarantee the integrity, authenticity and security of all data processed in the ballot boxes, from the collection to the counting of registered votes.
