We should eliminate EVMs: Elon Musk

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SpaceX and Tesla Motors Elon Musk made an offhand remark on the microblogging site X (formerly known as Twitter) that has led to contrasting responses from across the political spectrum in India. “We should eliminate electronic voting machines (EVMs). The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high,” Musk remarked. Indian National Congress (INC) leader Rahul Gandhi responded to this by sharing news of a possible influencing of outcome in the Mumbai-Northwest constituency wherein the Shiv Sena candidate Ravindra Waiker won by a margin of 48 votes over the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackery) Amol Kirtikar. “EVMs in India are a "black box," and nobody is allowed to scrutinise them. Serious concerns are being raised about transparency in our electoral process. Democracy ends up becoming a sham and prone to fraud when institutions lack accountability,” Rahul stated. 

We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high. https://t.co/PHzJsoXpLh

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)

We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high. https://t.co/PHzJsoXpLh

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 15, 2024

">June 15, 2024

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Former Minister of State for the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrashekar disagreed with Elon. He even offered to show him a tutorial about how the EVMs used in India are foolproof. “This is a huge sweeping generalisation statement that implies no one can build  secure digital hardware. Wrong. Indian EVMs are custom designed,  secure and isolated from any network or media - No connectivity, no bluetooth, wifi, Internet. ie there is no way in. Factory programmed controllers that cannot be reprogrammed,” Rajeev mentioned.