Money in Electoral Campaigns: The Relationship between Money and Politics as a Cause of the Judicialization of Electoral Processes in Brazil

Abstract

The electoral court is a specialized branch of the Brazilian judiciary that not only organizes and regulates elections in the country but also resolves conflicts between political actors involved in the electoral process. The (mis)use of money in electoral campaigns is one of the causes of the judicialization of electoral processes in Brazil. In fact, among many other reasons, such judicialization can occur when actors in the electoral process (candidates, parties, and party coalitions) are accused, either by their opponents and/or by the Electoral Public Prosecutor’s Office, of irregularities such as abuse of economic power, illegal fundraising or expenditure of electoral resources, electoral corruption, or falsification of the campaign’s accounting records. Through the study of electoral lawsuits filed between 2008 and 2016 against mayoral candidates, this work has two objectives: (i) to dimension the importance of the relationship between money and politics as a cause of the judicialization of electoral processes in Brazilian local elections and (ii) to characterize the candidates that appear as defendants in electoral lawsuits filed by that cause.