Superior Electoral Court President Kassio Nunes Marques said Brazil's 2026 elections were conducted in full compliance with legal and constitutional requirements, responding to fraud allegations from defeated candidate Flavio Bolsonaro.
Brazil's top electoral court has declared the 2026 presidential elections fully lawful, pushing back against fraud allegations from defeated candidate Senator Flavio Bolsonaro.
Superior Electoral Court (TSE) President Kassio Nunes Marques said in a statement published on the court's website on Wednesday that the elections were conducted in full compliance with legal and constitutional requirements. He said he reaffirmed the commitment of the entire electoral justice system to the sovereign will of the electorate, who went to the polls and legitimately chose their representatives, and that all challenges submitted through due legal process would be examined and answered.
Nunes Marques acknowledged instability in the final stages of voting but said measures adopted by the court and the expertise of its technical staff had enabled vote counting to proceed and ensured the election was conducted securely. The statement came after Bolsonaro alleged electoral fraud in an open letter, accusing Brazil's Supreme Federal Court of overstepping the TSE's authority by extending voting by two hours, an order he said was communicated only after the official closing time.
The Supreme Federal Court ordered voting extended until 7 p.m. on Sunday after both presidential campaigns reported that voters had difficulty reaching polling stations. The ruling applied only to polling stations that had remained open at 5 p.m., while those already closed were not reopened. According to the TSE's results, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won with 64,256,232 votes, or 51.79 percent, against Bolsonaro's 59,826,041, or 48.21 percent, a margin of more than 4.4 million votes, while Brazilian media put the number of votes cast after the original 5 p.m. closing time at about 34,300, far smaller than Lula's margin.
Bolsonaro and his family arrived in Miami on Wednesday morning, according to United States media reports, after a Supreme Federal Court justice ordered an investigation into possible foreign financing of his campaign and a court order required him to surrender his passport. With the TSE now formally defending the count and promising to answer any legal challenges, the dispute moves from public claims to whatever cases Bolsonaro's team chooses to file through the courts.