TSE fines Carla Zambelli BRL 30,000 for publishing about electronic voting machines| Photo: André Borges/EFE

The ministers of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) decided, this Thursday (25), to impose a fine of R$ 30,000 against federal deputy Carla Zambelli (PL-SP) for publishing a video on social networks about an alleged manipulation of electronic ballot boxes in a union.

The magistrates claim that the video produced and broadcast by the deputy in September 2022 on YouTube, Twitter and Kwai transmitted “disinformation, inducing the voter to believe that there was fraud in the electoral process” in the procedure for loading and sealing the ballot boxes in the physical space of the Union of Workers in the Construction Industry of Itapeva (Sinticom). The deputy would have related the alleged manipulation to the then presidential candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

Minister Benedito Gonçalves, rapporteur for the action at the TSE, said that there was bad faith by the parliamentarian, who produced and released the video even after a note from the Regional Electoral Court of São Paulo (TRE-SP) clarified that, since 2014, the Electoral Registry from the 53rd Electoral Zone of Itapeva carries out the loading and sealing of electronic ballot boxes at the union due to lack of space in the registry office. The TRE also informed that the union is next to the electoral registry office and that all Regional contracts are available for public consultation.

Carla Zambelli did not comment on the TSE’s decision.