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Alarm Grows over 'Clearly Illegal' US Election Meddling in Brazil

70 points · 30 comments · robtherobber

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baggachipz · 1790944991 · focus · HN ↗
Curious to see how long this stays on the front page before it's killed/deranked.
1. Jagerbizzle · 1790945333 · focus · HN ↗
  Likely not for long now that I've taken a glance at the other headlines on this site...
matheusmoreira · 1790945162 · focus · HN ↗
... How?
The voting machines are UNQUESTIONABLE, remember? They cannot be tampered with. The computer illiterate supreme court judge said so, therefore it must be true.
If it's just a disinformation campaign or whatever, who cares? This is not "interference", it's just normal speech. Presidential elections barely matter these days anyway. It's the unelected supreme court that holds all the power.
Supreme court's already making moves that suggest they want to invalidate the election results. This country is going to turn into a circus should Bolsonaro's son somehow win this thing against all odds. An even bigger circus than it already is, anyway.
1. [deleted] · 1790945641 · focus · HN ↗
  [deleted]
2. piva00 · 1790949007 · focus · HN ↗
  > This is not "interference", it's just normal speech.
  It's not normal speech for a 3rd party country to openly meddle in another sovereign country's democratic process. This isn't and shouldn't be accepted anywhere.
  Hence why whenever it's been done it's through covert operations.
  1. matheusmoreira · 1790950700 · focus · HN ↗
    > openly meddle
    What is this "meddling" ? TFA is pretty vague about it.
    piva00 · 1790954625 · focus · HN ↗
    Meddling is involving officials from a government into the process, providing support (through financial or state powers) to a specific candidate. Anything related to a 3rd country's political body participating directly (or indirectly) in the electoral process is meddling.
    matheusmoreira · 1790959438 · focus · HN ↗
    So you mean things like USAID funneling money into leftist brazilian NGOs? Yeah.
    <a href="https://www12.senado.leg.br/noticias/materias/2025/05/20/csp-quer-que-barroso-explique-fala-sobre-apoio-dos-eua" rel="nofollow">https://www12.senado.leg.br/noticias/materias/2025/05/20/csp...
    "We defeated Bolsonarism."
    Post your logic and/or evidence if you think this sort of thing is happening right now. Not even doubting you, I want to know too.
Qiu_Zhanxuan · 1790945272 · focus · HN ↗
The US attempting to reinstate another Dictator, I wonder if it'll backfire ?
1. jmclnx · 1790945750 · focus · HN ↗
  Probably, all they have to do is make sure the dictator is supported by Trump. That should ensure a loss, assuming Brazilian voters are smarter that the idiots in the US.
  1. simtel20 · 1790946049 · focus · HN ↗
    Bolsonaro is a few pancakes shorter of a stack than Trump. Even though he's clearly a liar who attempted a military coup, in a multi-party election he still leads a cult of personality large enough to make his son a presidential candidate.
    As with the US, education in Brazil needs improvement
josefritzishere · 1790945327 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
SkipperCat · 1790945376 · focus · HN ↗
There has been so much anecdotal evidence about US/Russia collusion in both US domestic and international behavior that I'm pretty much convinced Putin has some control over Trump. I don't know if it is blackmail, bribery, shared ideology or just the fact that Trump is a very useful idiot.
I know this isn't a quantitative analysis, but if it walks like a duck....
1. SanjayMehta · 1790945867 · focus · HN ↗
  Some examples would be much appreciated.
  1. SkipperCat · 1790946774 · focus · HN ↗
    This article is an anecdotal example. Why are the US/Russia interests aligned in Brazil to get Bolsonaro elected? Why would both countries want an authoritarian elected? The US and Russia for many decades had opposed views of authoritarian regimes around the world and only during the Trump administrations have we seen the US take such a strongly favorable view of them.
    matheusmoreira · 1790947139 · focus · HN ↗
    The Bolsonaros are US puppets, of course. Kinda weird to see Russia on that list though... I'm gonna try to figure out why.
    SkipperCat · 1790949589 · focus · HN ↗
    The way I see it is that if more countries become autocratic, then Russian autocracy becomes normalized and they will become less of a pariah in the global world order. The more they can normalize themselves, the more the Russians can evade restrictions and sanctions. This is their end goal.
    matheusmoreira · 1790951099 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    ghusto · 1790951784 · focus · HN ↗
    This, for a start:
    <a href="https://whatispix.com/" rel="nofollow">https://whatispix.com/
roenxi · 1790945837 · focus · HN ↗
One of the interesting things about the Chinese rise has been their paranoid approach to keeping western media (and, I expect, NGOs) out of China. And the relative secrecy that their political processes operates under [0]. Particularly their stiff resistance to the likes of Google and social media. It is fun to question whether a more open approach would have resulted in earlier or more effective US intervention in their decision making than the difficulty that the trade war with China seems to have had.
[0] I suppose I can't read Chinese; maybe if I did it is all well explained. I doubt it.
1. soraminazuki · 1790997543 · focus · HN ↗
  Interesting, but you're posting under the wrong article.
sanex · 1790945849 · focus · HN ↗
Would be nice if they said what this meddling actually is instead of quotes from people complaining about said meddling.
1. matheusmoreira · 1790946420 · focus · HN ↗
  Indeed. Nothing but vague accusations. I'm willing to bet it's just the usual paid-for biased journalism. They think it's all fake news.
  Here's a real election interference: an openly partidarian electoral court judge simply decided that it was illegal for anyone to mention current president Lula in the presidential debate that was supposed to be held on national television. As a result, the debate was cancelled.
  1. piva00 · 1790948908 · focus · HN ↗
    > an openly partidarian electoral court judge simply decided that it was illegal for anyone to mention current president Lula in the presidential debate that was supposed to be held on national television
    I don't see any news mentioning this, at all, the only reason I found for the debate to be cancelled was the inclusion of 2 candidates over the 4 initially invited for it.
    Sources?
    matheusmoreira · 1790950283 · focus · HN ↗
    <a href="https://valorinternational.globo.com/politics/news/2026/10/02/globo-cancels-brazil-presidential-debate-after-court-rulings.ghtml" rel="nofollow">https://valorinternational.globo.com/politics/news/2026/10/0...
    Current president Lula of the worker's party decided not to go to the debate. The debate rules say that in these cases an empty podium is shown and those who actually showed up can direct questions towards the absent candidate as though he was there all along.
    In comes a electoral court judge and makes the rule illegal so Lula can save some face.
    piva00 · 1790954463 · focus · HN ↗
    Blatantly pro-Lula? Globo is quite well-known for being against the Worker's Party for decades, including manipulating the editing of the debate from Lula's first attempt on a presidency election in the 1990s.
    The Folha link is behind a paywall, can't read it, otherwise the Valor one states Gilmar Mendes is also responsible for a change in the debate format which caused Flávio Bolsonaro to withdraw. Seems more like a shitshow being played by all sides to score points with their own camps.
    And yup, Brazil is far gone after the whole soft coup of Dilma putting Temer in power, getting Bolsonaro elected and having Lula a third time. Brazilian politics is stuck, a huge share of the blame also goes to the Evangelicals who are, for a lack of better words, a pretty stupid cohort of voters.
    matheusmoreira · 1790958434 · focus · HN ↗
    > Globo is quite well-known for being against the Worker's Party for decades
    ... OK.
    > The Folha link is behind a paywall
    Simply disable javascript.
    > Gilmar Mendes is also responsible for a change in the debate format which caused Flávio Bolsonaro to withdraw.
    Yeah, apparently he put some other guy nobody really cares about in the debate. Why some supreme court judge is meddling in that stuff is beyond me.
    > Seems more like a shitshow
    Yup.
    > soft coup of Dilma
    I'm not even gonna argue with this.
    piva00 · 1790959122 · focus · HN ↗
    The Folha link displays a paywall even on reader-mode.
    > I'm not even gonna argue with this.
    Shutting down a conversation is not a good look for your argumentation. There was a soft coup, politically orchestrated to use a budgeting maneuver done by almost all previous administrations as an impeachable offense. I also didn't like Dilma as a leader but denying this is denying reality.
    Just so I know who I'm arguing with: did you vote for Bolsonaro and would vote again for him?
    matheusmoreira · 1790962141 · focus · HN ↗
    > The Folha link displays a paywall even on reader-mode.
    Disable javascript. They send you the full article for free, then javascript deletes the content and puts up the paywall. Activating reader mode after the content's been deleted won't bring it back.
    > Shutting down a conversation is not a good look for your argumentation.
    Sorry. It's for my own mental health. I can't assume good faith from brazilians. Too often they flag my comments to oblivion without any debate whatsoever. Guy further up the thread dismissed me as a whatsapp uncle once.
    Just look up my posts if you really want to know what I think. I've posted far too many. Here's a recent one:
    <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49854480">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49854480
    In short: whatever "coup" this is, it's literally nothing compared to the one perpetrated by the supreme court, which by this point is known for a fact to be aligned with Lula and his party. There is no way to deny this after the Vorcaro leaks. The unelected supreme court has essentially usurped all power, and this country will never be fixed until the entire institution is abolished straight up.
    > did you vote for Bolsonaro and would vote again for him?
    Yes, and I would again if I had no better option.
    Don't mistake me for a "bolsonarist" though. There is exactly one politician that once upon a time represented me: Enéas Carneiro. All the others are complete disappointments.
    Currently, I'm most aligned with Novo. Oddly enough I also keep track of PCO due to their ideological purity and consistency. If only they weren't communists.
    piva00 · 1790965911 · focus · HN ↗
    > Yes, and I would again if I had no better option. Don't mistake me for a "bolsonarist" though. It's more of a not-worker's party thing. There is exactly one politician that once upon a time represented me: Enéas Carneiro.
    Sorry but I do understand why someone else dismissed you in other comments, you're a nutcase and so we should stop this right now.
    I have absolutely no respect, no patience anymore (since I've spent too much of it trying to empathise and engage in good faith) to engage or converse with someone who votes for Bolsonaro, and would continued voting for him.
    No matter your dislike of the Worker's Party, you're being anti-human by giving your support to someone like him just for hatred over a party. Unfortunately you're just another side of the same problem of this plagued country that Brazil is, and you won't ever be able to see that.
    matheusmoreira · 1790966243 · focus · HN ↗
    > I have absolutely no respect, no patience
    Yes, I can see that.
  2. cassianoleal · 1790954940 · focus · HN ↗
    > for anyone to mention current president Lula in the presidential debate
    This is blatantly false. They ruled that the other candidates could not _direct questions at Lula_. Not that he couldn't be mentioned. Those are very different things.
    matheusmoreira · 1790958796 · focus · HN ↗
    <a href="https://valorinternational.globo.com/politics/news/2026/10/02/globo-cancels-brazil-presidential-debate-after-court-rulings.ghtml" rel="nofollow">https://valorinternational.globo.com/politics/news/2026/10/0...
    > Aranha ruled that the broadcaster’s rules could create an imbalance in the debate by providing “an independent space for references to an absent candidate without observing the dialectical dynamic that characterizes the institution of an electoral debate.”
    In other words, according to this judge, Lula can only be referenced if the "dialectical dynamic that characterizes the institution of an electoral debate" is preserved. In other words, "if he's physically there to respond".
    Go argue with her if you disagree, not me.
expedition32 · 1790946668 · focus · HN ↗
I remember an old documentary in the Netherlands about the first Portuguese elections after their dictatorship ended.
The CIA needed to send suitcases of money to the socialists in order to beat the communists. It was all very hush hush with Dutch, German and English proxies. Everyone in those days was on the same side.
Socialists won, Portugal became a civilised part of Europe and everyone lived happily ever after.
The difference between Portugal and Brazil: if the Portuguese had known all of this was going on they would have turned against the US and Europe as a matter of patriotic pride.
Mamut3 · 1790958869 · focus · HN ↗
It's completely real. But it isn't working the way Rubio and Trump expect. It's having the opposite effect.
There are a lot of people who never voted for Lula but will vote for him precisely because the U.S. is trying to manipulate things here.
There are reports of:
- Social media boosting far-right profiles. - Meetings at embassies and consulates with right-wing influencers, including the distribution of money. -Meetings with Brazilian and American members of the Rockbridge Network. - Cancellation of visas for journalists and influencers who are not aligned with the current government. -Offering visas to journalists and influencers who show, at a minimum, that they will not get in the way of the interests of the current American government. - Today, for example, the embassy and the consulates were closed and nobody knows why. There isn't the slightest risk for any American here. Everyone is welcome.
It's sad that a relationship of more than 200 years is being set aside so that one side of the political spectrum is favored. It's not even behind the scenes. It's clear. Any Brazilian journalist or influencer is aware of it.
From what I've been following here, Lula could win in the first round. The last reliable poll showed 48% of the valid votes.
Root for us. Flávio Bolsonaro unites the worst elements of Brazilian politics: corruption, militias, organized crime, receiving billions in illicit funds — and none of that has been explained yet, because he has parliamentary immunity as a senator elected by Rio de Janeiro. To give you an idea, he began his term as a Rio de Janeiro city councilman by taking a percentage of the salaries of the legislative staff in his own office.
His Senate term ends this year. If he doesn't win, all the dirt will definitely start being investigated. He'll have to flee to the U.S., just like his brother did.
Nobody here is against the United States. I, for example, even have family over there. The only thing we ask for is respect for our sovereignty and that our relationship be what it has always been — a friendship where everyone wins.
If Flávio Bolsonaro is elected, everyone is going to lose, because Brazil will fall into a hole that will take decades to climb out of.
Religious extremism, silencing of opposing politicians and independent journalists, and oppression of the Brazilian people

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