Elon Musk casts doubt on EVM in elections; former min Rajeev Chandrashekar schools Tesla CEO

NEW DELHI: Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, on Sunday expressed his worry over the reliability of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) in elections. The business tycoon suggested eliminating the use of electronic voting machines and feared the chances of elections getting hacked. Musk's social media post has come amid discussions around the world( even in the USA) over the safety of EVM machines.

"Electronic voting machines should be avoided. The possibility of being hacked by humans or AI machines, however small, is very high” - Musk noted on X, referring to the recent election irregularities in Puerto Rico.

Meanwhile, third-generation EVM machines known as M3 EVMs are used in India. These devices are designed to be 'tamper proof'. If any kind of tampering is detected these will go into security mode and become inactive.

Meanwhile, former Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the man who spearheaded the IT revolution in India, came with a retort to Musk. The former minister termed the assertion from Musk as a ‘huge sweeping generalization’.

"This is a huge sweeping generalization statement that implies no one can build secure digital hardware. Wrong," wrote Rajeev on X.

“Musk's statement applies to countries like the US that use common computing platforms to build Internet-connected voting machines. But Indian EVMs are custom-designed. They are isolated and secure from networks and media. It doesn't have any kind of connectivity, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or internet. There is no way to get into it. Electronic voting machines can be architected and built right as India has done. We would be happy to run a tutorial Elon.” Explained Rajeev.

Meanwhile, Musk responded to Rajeev saying “Anything can be hacked”.