There was no cheating at the ballot box: ITA engineers denied the PL report

An open letter signed by 30 engineers from the ITA (Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica) rejects the methodology, depth and technical quality of the Liberal Party (PL) report questioning the safety of electronic voting machines.

The document titled “Technical Report Invalid Electronic Ballot Box Records”, released on November 15 by current President Jair Bolsonaro’s party PL, calls for the 2022 runoff result to be canceled due to “malfunction”. ” from equipment.

According to the letter, “the report in question has no methodological verification or review by ITA to guarantee the scientific rigor expected from the institution”. Professionals further argue that correlation does not imply causation, and the report does not provide “evidence of causality between ballot box shape and characteristics of results.”

The report questions the integrity of the log, the file produced by the ballot box, which is responsible for recording all system transactions, including the date and time when voters were released, and the time of voting, but which does not contain their identities. A journal is a general document that can be audited.

For those who signed the ITA letter, “there is insufficient evidence or no record to point to irregularities in the records, given that the logs are properly provided and identified by location (combination of municipality, district, and department). does not explore how a possible flaw in the code would have an effect on the votes counted before proposing an interference in the electoral process”.

The technical implication of the open letter signatories is that “the report is superficial, limited, and does not follow good practices of technical and scientific analysis such as generating and testing hypotheses, as well as not using data on the location of the ballot boxes.” “.

The Operating Instructions report was signed by three ITA-trained engineers, and therefore the letter was issued to reinforce that the drafters of the ITA do not “represent the organization trained engineers or the organization itself”.