Bolsonaro challenge is rejected by Brazil’s electoral court

According to a court document, President Jair Bolsonaro’s party filed a case to dispute the October run-off election, which the incumbent narrowly lost. The chairman of Brazil’s electoral court, Alexandre de Moraes, rejected the appeal on Wednesday.

The document revealed that Moraes, who is also a justice of the Supreme Court, penalized the parties in Bolsonaro’s alliance 22.9 million reais ($4.27 million) for what the court deemed to be bad faith litigation.

Election officials first reacted skeptically to Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party’s (PL) Tuesday protest challenging the results of the election, which claimed some of the electronic voting machines had defects and that their votes should be disregarded.

The initiative was deemed to be poor on its merits by electoral experts and political observers, but it still has the potential to inflame supporters who have been protesting Bolsonaro’s defeat.