Page 146 - Towards Trustworthy Elections New Directions in Electronic Voting by Ed Gerck (auth.), David Chaum, Markus Jakobsson, Ronald L. Rivest, Peter Y. A. Ryan, Josh Benaloh, Miroslaw Kutylowski, Ben Adida ( (z-lib.org (1)

P.A.D.
Rezende
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has disappeared from public awareness. Nonetheless, lessons from Brazil's Old Re-
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public were not forgotten by all.
10 History Lessons
Those who heed History can observe – and in this case report – double standards be-
ing, again, applied to electoral matters. Given the aim of this article we now focus on
the American continent, especially on a self-appointed role played lately by the OAS,
the role of some sort of “democracy police”.
Of the only country to have yet adopted VVPAT as uniform requirement for its
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electronic voting system , OAS officials demanded, in an election held there in 2004,
that the final tally be audited by manual recount in a sample they would help pick, of
1.5% of the precincts. At the end, 54% of the precincts were audited clean by manual
recount. This was a referendum that could have toppled an elected president at the
middle of his mandate. For the rest of Latin America, however, OAS encourages, or
engages as a broker for, the use of Brazil's electronic voting system, which does not
allow for recount. The same system whose designers, operators and lobbyists fight
hard to never allow to become effectively auditable, to the point of even defrauding
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the legislative process which sets its main requirements .
To brag about this engagement, TSE has even published a booklet with a list of coun-
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tries OAS is helping get used to, or get to use, Brazil's electronic voting system . Ar-
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gentina, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico and Paraguay . However,

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The flag from Brazil's state of Paraíba is a homage to a former candidate for Brazil's
vice-presidency, João Pessoa, whose assassination is believed to have sparked the 1930
Revolution, a popular revolt that busted the enduring collusion plot known as "política café-
com-leite" ('cappuccino' politics). Paraíba's capitol is also named after him. According to the
state's official web site, the red part of the flag stands for the blood shed in his assassination,
and the remaining black for the mourning feeling after his death. The word NEGO, which
means "I refuse", over the red part refers to the ensuing revolt against the "café-com-leite"
collusion practice, fueled by the state's refusal to accept the official 1930 presidential election
result. That result had declared the defeat of João Pessoa, governor of Paraíba at the time,
and of his presidential mate, Getúlio Vargas. The rebellion set in motion by Pessoa's assassi-
nation, before inauguration, ended up conducting Vargas to the presidency, exposing a dis-
tance which legality can stray away from legitimacy.
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Venezuela: http://www.cne.gov.ve
27
The law revoking the undebuted VVPAT measure (Law 10.740 of 2003) and the law intro-
ducing electronic voting systems into Brazil's electoral process (Law. 9.100 of 1995) were
admittedly drafted by TSE staff. Under constant lobbying by electoral officials, the corre-
sponding Bills were voted by the two houses of Congress, passed and sanctioned into Law by
the president in record time (less than six months), with significant engagement of politicians
involved in electoral litigation and not a single public hearing or amendment allowed.
Throughout the process of drafting, discussing, voting and sanctioning them, any and all
contributions offered by the academic community were ignored. Law nº 10.740 was ap-
proved by Brazil's Congress in September 29, 2003 with grave irregularities, documented in
www.brunazo.eng.br/voto-e/textos/PLazeredo.htm (see [ref. 8]).
28
“Informatization of Brazil's Electoral Justice” (Informatização da Justiça Eleitoral Brasileira),
TSE, Brasília, 2005.
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By the time the booklet was published, presumably in 2005.