Rony Nadim

🚨 There is no forensic vote-auditing system in Brazil that is fully independent of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), operates outside its control, and allows for the autonomous recounting and verification of individual votes. Brazil’s official electronic voting system relies on the Digital Vote Record (Registro Digital do Voto, or RDV) for digital recounts, along with source-code audits, public security tests, and integrity testing. However, these mechanisms are administered within the framework established and managed by Brazil’s Electoral Justice system. There is no physical, voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) for each vote that would allow an independent and autonomous physical recount. Consequently, electoral audits depend on data, procedures, and access mechanisms governed by the TSE and the Regional Electoral Courts (TREs). Electoral oversight, including source-code audits, integrity tests, access to digital vote records, and recounting procedures, therefore takes place under rules and conditions established by the very electoral authorities responsible for administering the elections. Institutionally independent organizations do not operate a separate, parallel forensic auditing system capable of independently verifying and recounting individual votes outside the official electoral infrastructure. This means that electoral oversight may involve external institutions and independent observers, but the technical procedures and access required for verification remain subject to the framework established by Brazil’s Electoral Justice system. Brazil is not the only country using electronic voting systems without a voter-verifiable paper audit trail. Bangladesh and Bhutan have also used direct-recording electronic voting (DRE) systems without VVPAT in national elections. In these systems, as in Brazil, verification and auditing are administered through the central electoral authority rather than through a separate, independently operated forensic auditing infrastructure capable of conducting autonomous physical recounts. By contrast, most countries that use electronic voting incorporate either a physical paper trail or paper ballots, allowing votes to be independently verified through physical records. The central distinction is therefore between electoral oversight conducted within an officially controlled technical and procedural framework and an entirely independent forensic verification system capable of recounting individual votes without relying on the electoral authority’s infrastructure, data access, or authorization.