A white pickup truck displaying the number 13 — the official stamp of Brazil's ruling Workers' Party (PT) — was filmed collecting electronic ballot boxes in Brazil's Federal District after the October runoff. The country's electoral court confirmed the violation but insists the votes were not compromised.
BRASILIA — A white pickup truck prominently branded with the number 13, the official identifier of Brazil’s ruling Workers’ Party (PT), was filmed collecting electronic ballot boxes from a polling station in the Federal District after the October 26 presidential runoff. Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) confirmed the incident last week in an official fact-check, acknowledging the violation but insisting the votes were not affected.
The footage, recorded by a resident of Riacho Fundo II in the Federal District, shows a woman leaving a childhood education center carrying boxes labeled “Urna Eletrônica” (Electronic Ballot Box) and handing them to a man wearing a hat, who loads them into the back of the pickup. A red PT sticker bearing the number 13 is clearly visible on the tailgate. The video has been circulating since the early hours of Monday after the runoff and has spread rapidly across Brazilian social media.
In an official checkup published October 28 on its “Fato ou Boato” (Fact or Rumor) service, the TSE confirmed the episode. The tribunal recognized that the use of a vehicle bearing partisan identification violates Resolution TRE-DF No. 8.140/2026 (Article 11, § 3, Section IV), which requires political-partisan neutrality in vehicles used to transport ballot boxes and electoral materials.
Why it matters
The same resolution authorizes administrators and supervisors to use private vehicles to collect ballot boxes, provided there is prior notice, security protocols and — fundamentally — neutrality. The PT sticker renders the procedure irregular by definition. The Regional Electoral Court of the Federal District (TRE-DF) has received the records from the local electoral office and says it is investigating who was responsible.
The TSE’s defense is that the irregularity “did not compromise the votes.” According to the tribunal, by the time the boxes were being transported, the count had already been performed at each polling section, printed reports (“boletins de urna”) had been issued, and digital totals had been transmitted to the TSE’s central system. The physical transport that followed, the court argues, could not alter results that were already in the official record.
The record
Brazilian electoral authorities draw a line between non-compliance with vehicle identification rules and actual vote fraud, and in this case the TSE confirmed only the former. No independent audit of the ballot boxes carried in the branded pickup has been published, and no criminal charge has been filed against the individuals in the video.
But the neutrality rule exists precisely to preserve the appearance of impartiality in a country where confidence in the electronic ballot box is already contested by millions of voters. The TSE’s own official note describes the pickup only as a vehicle with “a sticker bearing the number of a political party,” without naming the PT — even though the images make the party identification obvious. In a system that has refused for years to allow independent source-code auditing of the voting machines, the choice of language from the top electoral court is itself a signal.
This happens under a government whose 2022 victory remains disputed by millions of Brazilians who allege electronic ballot fraud, and whose electoral court has made clear it will prosecute Brazilians who continue to question the integrity of the vote. A PT-branded pickup collecting ballot boxes after the runoff is not a bureaucratic footnote. It is a visible breach of the one rule the electoral authority wrote to protect its own credibility — and the authority’s response is to confirm the breach while refusing to name the party on the sticker.
The Watch Post Daily will continue to follow this story. Sources: TSE Fato ou Boato official fact-check (October 28, 2026), Gazeta do Povo, Jornal da Cidade Online, Resolution TRE-DF No. 8.140/2026, and video footage circulating on Brazilian social media.
Featured image: ballot box, photo by planet_fox on Pixabay, licensed for commercial use with no attribution required.
COMMENTS
Finally, somebody connecting the dots in English. A PT-branded truck collecting the ballot boxes is the kind of image Brazilians know by heart and that the U.S. press never gets. Please keep going.