Former Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar on June 16 countered Tesla and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk’s remarks on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) calling it a ‘sweeping generalisation’.
In a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, Mr. Musk called for the elimination of EVMs, stating that while small, the risk of hacking EVMs by humans or Artificial Intelligence (AI) is still high. Mr. Musk was reacting to the news of voting discrepancies in Puerto Rico’s primary elections after discovering a software issue that caused the machines to incorrectly calculate vote totals.
The Puerto Rico Election Commission, as a result, said that it’s reviewing its contract with Dominion Voting Systems — a U.S. electronic voting company — after the commission conducted a full vote tally and audited paper receipts from hundreds of ballot-counting machines.
‘Happy to run a tutorial’
The former Union Minister, reacting to Mr. Musk’s post, said that while his views may apply to countries like the U.S. where regular compute platforms are used to build Internet connected Voting machines, it doesn’t apply to India.
Further explaining his India’s electoral process and how EVMs work, Mr. Chandrasekhar said that 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,” Mr. Chandrasekhar emphasised.
Expressing pride for the EVMs and the electoral process in India, Mr. Chandrasekhar that ‘EVMs can be architected and built right as India has done’. “We would be happy to run a tutorial Elon,” the former Minister added.
Election Commission on EVMs
In a response to the Supreme Court of India on the eve of the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections, the Election Commission assured that it is impossible to tamper with electronic voting machines (EVMs) “at any stage”. the statement by the ECI came when the Supreme Court conducted a marathon hearing over petitions seeking cross-verification of 100% EVM votes with VVPAT paper slips.
(with inputs from AP)
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