Misleading: The insinuation of fraud involving the counting of votes in the capital of Alagoas, Maceió, pointed out in a video posted on Twitter, is misleading. The alleged ruse “denounced” by the author of the content would seek to harm the president and candidate for reelection, Jair Bolsonaro (PL). To expose data from the election in that capital, the video shows information published by the system of the newspaper O Globo, which presented errors – which has already been identified by the vehicle. The counting of votes is officially carried out by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), whose system maintained its integrity throughout the electoral process held on October 2nd.
Investigated Content: Video that circulates on Twitter shows a divergence in the voting percentages of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and Bolsonaro in the electoral areas of Maceió in relation to the general result of the election in the municipality. Bolsonaro is ahead in each of the five zones, but appears in 2nd place when the author selects the option “all electoral zones”. The official suggests that this difference represents an indication of fraud in the election. The recording has as background a shirt of the Brazilian soccer team.
where it was published: Twitter.
Completion of Proof: An error in the infographic developed by the newspaper O Globo to publish the results of the first round of the presidential election caused confusion in the interpretation of the data and was used as a basis for a misleading video that insinuates fraud in the election in Maceió. However, the problem in the newspaper’s system has nothing to do with the counting of votes, which the TSE is responsible for, that is, there is no evidence of fraud.
In the video verified here, the author consults the result of the voting by electoral zone of Maceió in the Voting Map and notes that Bolsonaro had higher percentages than Lula in the five regions. However, when the option “all electoral zones” is selected, which should show the overall result in the municipality, the newspaper system displays the PT leader, with 56.5% of the votes. Next is Bolsonaro, with 36.05%. In view of this, the author suggests that there was fraud in Lula’s favor.
Due to an error in the system, the option “all electoral zones” pulled the data on the result of the vote in the entire state of Alagoas, where, in fact, Lula was ahead, with a percentage of 56.5%. in note, O Globo explained the problem and reported that the error occurred in the vehicle’s own system, in the distribution of total votes in the 63 cities where it was possible to consult the voting by electoral zone. The TSE website presents the correct data.
misleading, for Comprova, is all content taken from the original context and used in another so that its meaning undergoes changes; that uses inaccurate data or that leads to an interpretation different from the author’s intention; content that confuses, with or without the deliberate intent to cause harm.
Scope of publication: As of October 10, the tweet had 13,900 views, 342 likes and 216 shares.
What the author of the publication says: The account responsible for the publication on Twitter does not allow direct messaging. Comprova looked for a similar profile on other networks, but was not successful. At the beginning of the video, the author identifies himself with a name, but we do not identify his profile on social networks.
How do we check: After having access to the investigated content, the team made searches on Google, having as a return a publication of The globein which the newspaper recognizes the flaw in its calculation map.
The search also found a publication by electoral justicewho classified the insinuation of fraud as a “rumor” and pointed to the occurrence of a mistake in the disclosure made by the newspaper.
Finally, the team accessed the official data from the TSE regarding the results of the elections in the state of Alagoas and compared it with the numbers of the verified content.
TSE portal has correct data on voting in Maceió
In the video verified here, the author films a cell phone screen with data from the vote for president in Maceió, capital of Alagoas. The video shows the Voting Map page of the newspaper O Globo, information confirmed by the visual identity and the address “infograficos.oglobo.globo.com” on the device’s screen. In addition, O Globo published a note informing that its system for disseminating data from the first round of voting had an error that corresponds to the content presented in the video.
The TSE data show that, in Alagoas, Lula received 974,156 votes, which represents 56.5%. Bolsonaro already had 621,515 votes, 36.05%. In Maceió, Bolsonaro received the highest percentage of votes, 49.59%, compared to 40.43% for PT.
In the video, the author researches on the O Globo website the percentage of votes of presidential candidates in each of the electoral areas of Maceió. Comprova compared the information shown in the publication with the data released by the TSE and found that the percentages of the zones are correct, with Bolsonaro ahead of Lula in all cases (despite this, Lula’s name appears first in the court system because he was ahead in the overall result, considering the entire state of Alagoas):
Lula: 39.13% (34,346 votes)
Bolsonaro: 50.45% (44,285 votes)
Lula: 39.92% (51,420 votes)
Bolsonaro: 49.74% (64,064 votes)
Lula: 41.57% (38,308 votes)
Bolsonaro: 48.95% (45,114 votes)
Lula: 41.01% (30,249 votes)
Bolsonaro: 49.11% (36,226 votes)
Lula: 40.75% (41,391 votes)
Bolsonaro: 49.58% (50,364 votes)
However, because of an error in the O Globo system, when the author of the video searches the newspaper’s website for the general result of the vote in Maceió (in the “all electoral zones” option), the portal presents Lula at the forefront. This occurs, according to O Globo, because the system pulls the result from the state of Alagoas (Lula with 56.5% and Bolsonaro with 36.05%). In fact, the percentages wrongly presented in the system, as if they were from Maceió, correspond to the result that the presidential candidates had in the state.
The inconsistency in the O Globo system is not related to the official verification and disclosure of the data, made by the TSE, that is, the problem is not an indication of fraud, as the author of the video suggests. The court correctly released the result of the election in Maceió, as shown in the screenshot below:
The website of the newspaper O Globo also presented an error in other states
Although the viral video focused on the problem of data in Alagoas, the newspaper reported that it had caught on its map an error in the automatic aggregation of results made by its system in the 63 cities for which the option of viewing data by electoral zones was available. .
The newspaper highlighted that the percentage of votes for each candidate in each electoral zone is correct in the numerical presentation of data and in the color map. However, when the user selected the option “all electoral zones”, which should lead to the general result in the municipality, the system presented the percentages of the state in question.
In the published note, Globo highlighted that there is no error in the data collected from the TSE’s information base and that the problem in its system is not related to the total number of votes carried out by the court. Polling by polling place has been disabled by the website until the error is corrected. The newspaper did not say how long the problem persisted.
why do we investigate: Comprova investigates suspicious content that goes viral on the internet related to the 2022 presidential elections, the pandemic and public policies of the federal government. The content investigated here falsely suggests the existence of electoral fraud, reinforcing the idea of insecurity in electronic voting machines and in the Brazilian electoral system. The counting of votes in Brazil is done exclusively by the TSE.
Other checks on the topic: Regarding insinuations of electoral fraud, Comprova also recently investigated that post invented data to insinuate electoral fraud in favor of Lulathat the Army did not interfere in the counting of votes is that there is no evidence that the ballot box prevented a vote for Bolsonaro in Pará.
Investigated by: O Popular, Correio and Estado de S.Paulo; Verified by: Metrópoles, CNN Brasil, Plural Curitiba, Correio do Estado, Rádio Band News FM, SBT, SBT News, O Dia, AFP, Piauí, Grupo Sinos, A Gazeta, Folha de S.Paulo and Imirante.com
Source: CNN Brasil
