Musk's EVM comments spark debate over potential tampering, Indian leaders weigh in too

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has ignited a debate over the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) by expressing concerns about their vulnerability to hacking. The suspicionMusk had over EVMs was so muchthat on June 15, the Space X founder suggested on X (formerly Twitter) that electronic voting machines should be eliminated.

"We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high," Musk stated.

Notably, Musk was not talking about Indian politics and the comment was in response to a post by Robert F Kennedy Jr, who highlighted numerous voting irregularities in Puerto Rico's primary elections and quoted reports attributing them to issues with electronic voting machines.

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Musk’s comments quickly drew reactions from Indian politicians.

Former Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar challenged Musk's statement while arguing that Indian EVMs are secure and cannot be hacked.

"This is a huge sweeping generalization statement that implies no one can build secure digital hardware. Wrong. @elonmusk's view may apply to US n other places - where they use regular compute platforms to build Internet connected Voting machines. But 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. Electronic voting machines can be architected and built right as India has done. We would be happy to run a tutorial Elon."

Rahul Gandhi calls EVMs 'black box'

On the other hand, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seemed to align with Musk’s concerns as he criticised the lack of transparency in India's EVM system.

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"EVMs in India are a "black box," and nobody is allowed to scrutinize 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," he wrote in a post while sharing a news clip about Shiv Sena Mumbai MP Ravindra Waikar's relative allegedly using a mobile phone for sending OTP to 'unlock' EVM machine.

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Shiv Sena UBT leader Aaditya Thackeray has accused the election commission of refusing to share CCTV footage from the counting centre.

However, Returning Officer Vandana Suryavanshi on Sunday (June 16) rubbished the claims and said, "It is a technically foolproof standalone device. There is no provision for wireless or wired communication with it."

(With inputs from agencies)