In a heated debate on X (formerly Twitter), Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Indian IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar discussed the reliability of EVM. Musk questioned if the world should switch to paper voting due to risks of hacking. Musk’s concerns were sparked by reports of voting irregularities in Puerto Rico’s elections. “Fortunately, there was a paper trail to correct the vote tallies,” said US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Chandrasekhar responded, suggesting Musk’s comments implied digital hardware could not be secure. He offered to teach Musk how to build secure EVMs. “India’s EVMs are custom-designed and not connected to any network, making them secure,” he stated.
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… https://t.co/GiaCqU1n7O
— Rajeev Chandrasekhar 🇮🇳 (@RajeevRC_X) June 16, 2024
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav supported Musk’s concerns. Rahul Gandhi criticized EVMs as “black boxes” lacking transparency, potentially undermining democracy. Akhilesh Yadav echoed the call for ballot paper voting, citing global expert warnings on EVM tampering risks. Musk countered by saying, “Anything can be hacked,” to which Chandrasekhar agreed but clarified that theoretical hacking doesn’t equate to practical insecurity of EVMs.
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. https://t.co/nysn5S8DCF pic.twitter.com/7sdTWJXOAb
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 16, 2024
The Supreme Court has upheld the Election Commission’s authority over EVMs, which the Commission claims are foolproof. EVMs in India are connected to a VVPAT (Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail) machine, allowing voters to verify their votes. But the debate continues as some European nations revert to ballot voting.
