Irregularities abound in 2nd round of Brazil election, which Lula claims to have won.

 

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva. New York Post/Getty. 

President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva has been declared the winner of the Brazil election. New York Post. The results are shocking given that Lula's opponent, Flavio Bolsonaro, had easily won the first round of the election by 2.2 million votes. The election will likely be contested due to irregularities caused by the Brazilian Supreme Court, which allowed polling places in districts likely to go to Lula to continue on for two hours after polls had closed on Bolsonaro districts. The Justice that ordered the stop,  Cristiano Zanin, was Lula's former lawyer. 

My Comment:

This is extraordinarily bad optics for Brazil and I wonder how they get out of this with any kind of credibility in their elections. These results, where Lula won by 4 million votes three weeks after losing by 2.2 million beggars belief and I don't see any reason why such a swing could happen. It also did not follow what the polling was saying. 

It's hard to think of a more explicit scenario for a crooked election. Bolsonaro's districts ended the voting at 5:00pm like they were legally required to do. The Lula districts should have done the same thing, but somehow their machines weren't shut down and they were able to follow this court order. That meant Lula's supporters had two more hours to vote. 

Does that mean that Lula didn't win? It's unclear. It's not impossible that Lula swung six million votes since the 1st round. Keep in mind, Lula and Bolsonaro were not the only candidates in the first round and some people left the vote blank. It's possible that Lula was able to consolidate those votes. Is it likely? I don't know. I don't see any reason for such a switch, even if it is possible. And, given that Brazil's elections are fully electronic and don't leave a paper trail, it's hard to detect fraud even if it is there. 

But it hardly matters what the results are when there is the appearance of fraud. The results could be 100% accurate but it doesn't matter when a Justice so obviously tips the scales of his preferred candidate. Everything else could be on the up and up, the polling could be wrong, Lula could have convinced people to vote for him and the margins may have been enough that keeping the polls open for two more hours didn't change anything, and it doesn't matter because how can Brazilians trust elections now?

It's also unlikely that anything will happen to overturn these results. Bolsonaro is contesting these results, but it's unlikely that a new election will happen regardless. I also don't see some kind of civil war breaking up, even though it appears to be justifiable. Instead, it seems likely that Lula will remain President, probably for life. If there is any good news here, it's that Lula is old enough that he's unlikely to get another term after this one.