Learn some lessons from India, ex-Union Minister tells Elon Musk on EVMs

Rajeev Chandrasekhar calls tech billionaire's remarks "huge sweeping generalisation" which holds no truth

New Delhi: Former Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Sunday that Elon Musk‘s take on eliminating electronic voting machines (EVMs) from voting is a “huge sweeping generalisation” which holds no truth, inviting the Tesla CEO to come and learn some lessons in India.

Responding to the tech billionaire’s post on X, which alleged that electronic voting machines should be eliminated as the “risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high,” Chandrasekhar said this is not the case at all.

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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

“This is a huge sweeping generalisation statement that implies no one can build secure digital hardware. Wrong,” replied the former Minister. According to Chandrasekhar, Musk’s view may apply to the US and other places where they use regular computing platforms to build “Internet-connected Voting machines.”

Musk had reacted to Puerto Rico’s primary elections which allegedly experienced voting irregularities. Chandrasekhar further rejected Musk’s statement, saying that Indian EVMs are custom-designed, secure and isolated from any network or media. “No connectivity, no bluetooth, wifi, Internet; there is no way in. Factory-programmed controllers that cannot be reprogrammed,” informed the former Minister.

“Electronic voting machines can be architected and built right as India has done. We would be happy to run a tutorial, Elon,” Chandrasekhar added.