Senator seeks to block election poll, citing exclusion of candidates

Senator Renan Calheiros has initiated legal action at the Regional Electoral Court of Alagoas (TRE-AL) to prevent the publication of an election poll by Paraná Pesquisas. The poll, conducted between June 28 and July 1, was scheduled for release on Friday and covers voter intentions for both governor and senator in the state.

Calheiros's lawsuit specifically targets the Senate portion of the poll, arguing that it omits three publicly declared pre-candidates: Alexandre Fleming (UP), Ítalo Bonja (PRTB), and Marcos Omena (Avante). The senator contends that their exclusion from the questionnaire, while his name and those of other rivals like Alfredo Gaspar (PL) and Arthur Lira (PP) are included, distorts the electoral landscape presented to voters. The legal filing asserts that the poll suffers from "transparency defects in the sample plan," hindering independent evaluation of its quality.

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The object of this representation is this recorte: the scenario submitted to the voter, which excludes a portion of the field effectively in dispute.

This move by Calheiros is the latest in a series of challenges to electoral surveys in Alagoas. Just days prior, the TRE-AL had already prohibited the release of a poll from the RealTime Big Data institute at the request of the PSDB-Cidadania federation. Murilo Hidalgo, director of Paraná Pesquisas, commented that such actions represent "another attempt to challenge electoral polls from all institutes."

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This is another attempt to challenge electoral polls, from all institutes.