Company talks about cable breaking during PEC vote in the Chamber, and PF will investigate blackout

The Federal Police opened a preliminary investigation this Tuesday (12) to investigate flaws in the internet and inconsistencies in the voting system of the Chamber of Deputies. Technical problems led the president of the House, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), to suspend the vote on the PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution) that extends social benefits in an election year on Tuesday night.

THE Sheet found that the company responsible for providing the service informed the PF that it had technical problems because of a cable break, which was related to a work and affected the internet in several places, not only in the Chamber of Deputies.

PF experts were at the Chamber also collected log files from everyone who accessed the network to investigate a possible sabotage or hacking of the system. In a first, however, investigators have no evidence of deliberate action to bring down the system and see the technical failure exposed by the company as feasible.

Lira suggested at various points in the session that the House’s system was under attack and, after announcing the suspension, said that the Federal Police was heading to the Chamber to investigate the technical problems identified during the vote.

“After the activation, a technical team was at the scene and made the first checks. A preliminary investigation procedure was initiated at the Federal Police Superintendence in the Federal District and the investigations continue in order to promptly clarify what happened”, said the Federal Police, in note.

The first signs of problems in the session were reported by Lira in the vote on a request to withdraw the agenda. According to him, the internet was intermittent. To pressure the deputies to vote, he said that he would give a discount on the salary to deputies who did not vote. In addition, he raised suspicions about the technical problem faced in the plenary.

He ironized the fact that the first round of the PEC that creates the minimum salary for nurses had no setbacks. According to the president of the Chamber, this type of difficulty only happens when voting on controversial issues, as is the case with the PEC that expands the benefits in an election year.

Leader of the PL in the Chamber, deputy Altineu Côrtes (RJ) said that there was a fraud in the vote. “We need to know why both links went down at the same time at the time of the PEC vote,” he said. The opposition reacted and asked him to prove the charge.

The vote had been postponed last week after a request to close the discussion got just 303 votes in favour, 5 less than the minimum required. The president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), evaluated that the quorum of deputies present (427) threatened the vote on the main text. Therefore, he postponed the vote to this week.​

The PEC was speeded up by Lira, an ally of Bolsonaro. Instead of following the regimental rite of having the admissibility analyzed by the CCJ (Constitution and Justice Commission) and only then being referred to a special commission to analyze the merits, the text was appended to that of the biofuels PEC, which had already passed the initial stage and was on special commission.