Lalit Shastri

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

Musk made this remark in response to Robert F Kennedy Jr. after he tweeted on X: “Puerto Rico’s primary elections just experienced hundreds of voting irregularities related to electronic voting machines, according to the Associated Press.”

“Luckily, there was a paper trail so the problem was identified and vote tallies corrected.”

“What happens in jurisdictions where there is no paper trail?”

“US citizens need to know that every one of their votes were counted, and that their elections cannot be hacked. We need to return to paper ballots to avoid electronic interference with elections.”

The context notwithstanding, had Musk restricted his comments to EVMs used in Puerto Rico’s primary elections, it would have been understandable but a blanket demand by him to eliminate EVMs (at a time when Parliamentary elections have just concluded and the entire Opposition in India had gone whole hog targetting EVMs) on the grounds that they can be hacked is either due to some agenda or sheer ignorance about the time-tested and hack proof EVMs made in India that are being used by the Election Commission for the biggest electoral exercise in the world.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, without applying his mind as per his won’t and taking a cue from what Musk stated was quick in attacking the EVMs and describing them as “black box“. Now, who will tell Rahul that there is nothing negative about the black box, which is a flight data recorder that must be in every aircraft. All flight information is recorded into the black box that makes the recorded flight data accessible to authorities when needed.

Similarly, the Electronic Voting Machine is a reliable electronic system to conduct elections. The voting data recorded in EVMs can be retained for a long time and extracted when required. The EVMs in India are factory controlled and cannot be hacked. This is an issue that has already been laid to rest after everyone was given the opportunity by the Election Commission of India to prove otherwise.

Regarding what Musk has said in context of EVMs, one doesn’t know whether or not he knows anything about the technology used in India to produce the EVMs. Perhaps his observation is based on his limited knowledge of EVMs developed in the US but were not being used in elections there.

One fact that cannot be brushed aside is that Musk had earlier sought tariff cuts to enter Indian market but the government of India had responded by saying “we do not tailor policy for anyone.” Piyush Goyal, Commerce Minister during Modi 2.0 (March 2024) was emphatic in saying. “Everybody is free to make their demands. But that does not mean that the government will necessarily take a decision on what you demand.” When asked whether the government was considering giving Tesla special concessions, Goyal had responded by saying: “Government does not tailor policy for any one individual company or its interests.”

From this, putting 2 and 2 together should not be difficult and readers can draw their own conclusion. This episode leaves us with one question. What could have prompted Musk to go ahead with such a loaded, generalised, sweeping and blanket observation regarding EVMs?

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

The use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) has revolutionized the Electoral System and introduction of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system has provided greater transparency to the poll process in India.

EVM means Ballot Unit, Control Unit and VVPAT unit unless specified particular unit. According to the Election Commission, the EVMs are not hackable. There cannot be any manipulation at manufacturing stage. The results cannot be altered by activating a Trojan Horse through a sequence of key presses. The ECI-EVMs cannot be physically tampered with. The EVMs use some of the most sophisticated technological features like One Time Programmable (OTP) microcontrollers, dynamic coding of key codes, date and time stamping of each and every key press etc. These EVMs also cannot be tampered with during the course of transportation or at the place of storage. There are checks and balances to ensure tamper-proofing of EVMs”.