OFFICIAL NOTE FROM THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE – Published on 11/10/2022 10:58 AM
Brasília (DF), 10/11/2022 – In order to avoid distortions of the content of the report sent yesterday (November 9), to the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), the Ministry of Defense clarifies that the accurate work of the team of military technicians in the supervision of the electronic voting system, although it did not indicate, did not exclude the possibility of fraud or inconsistency in electronic ballot boxes and the electoral process of 2022. Furthermore, the report indicated important aspects that require clarification. Among them:
- there was a possible security risk in the generation of the electronic ballot box programs due to the occurrence of computer access to the TSE network during the compilation of the source code;
- the ballot box functionality tests (Integrity Test and Pilot Project with Biometrics), in the way they were conducted, were not sufficient to rule out the possibility of the influence of malicious code that could alter the functioning of the voting system; and
- There were restrictions on the technicians’ access to the source code and software libraries developed by third parties, making it impossible to fully understand the execution of the code, which comprises more than 17 million lines of programming.
As a result of these findings and other obstacles listed in the report, it is not possible to ensure that the programs that were executed in the electronic ballot boxes are free from malicious insertions that alter their operation.
For this reason, the Ministry of Defense requested the TSE, as a matter of urgency, to conduct a technical investigation on what happened in the compilation of the source code and a detailed analysis of the codes that were actually executed in the electronic ballot boxes, creating, for these purposes, a specific commission of renowned technicians from the society and technicians representing the inspection entities.
Finally, the Ministry of Defense reaffirms the permanent commitment of the Department and the Armed Forces to the Brazilian people, democracy, freedom, the defense of the homeland, and the guarantee of the Constitutional Powers, law and order.
Ministry of Defense
*** Translated by the DEFCONPress FYI Team ***