Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro used a Thursday, Nov. 5, appearance at a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) gala in Florida to repeat an election-fraud allegation as Brazil’s official count showed he lost by 4.43 million votes. The Guardian quoted Bolsonaro saying, “I know this wasn’t the end for Brazil.” CPAC’s schedule listed him as a speaker at the Mar-a-Lago Club, and CNN Brasil and EL PAÍS reported that he addressed the gala.
Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) declared incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva the winner of the Oct. 25 runoff, with 64,256,232 votes, or 51.79% of valid votes. Bolsonaro received 59,826,041 votes, or 48.21%, leaving a margin of 4,430,191 votes.
EL PAÍS reported that Bolsonaro said the election had been stolen after CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp prompted him to voice the allegation in Portuguese. The outlet said Bolsonaro offered no evidence. EconoTimes previously reported that Bolsonaro called for the election to be annulled, arguing that extended voting hours favored Lula even though Bolsonaro had also requested the extension.
The TSE said an integrity test on Oct. 25 found no discrepancies when it compared 389 paper-recorded votes with electronic ballot records. The test covered those votes; it was not a recount of the full election.
In a separate fact check, the court said a circulating report used figures from polling sections that stayed open after 5 p.m. Brasília time (2000 UTC) without accounting for votes cast earlier in the day. The TSE counted 34,393 votes recorded after 5 p.m. Brasília time (2000 UTC) across 497,333 sections that remained open, far below Lula’s margin of victory.
The Associated Press reported that political scientist Carlos Melo of Insper University saw Bolsonaro’s move abroad as likely to weaken him, citing the difficulty of leading from outside Brazil. AP also reported that political scientist Luciana Santana said the right could retain influence through its strength in Congress.
