On June 16, former Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar called Tesla and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk’s statements on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) a’sweeping generalisation’.

In a post on social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, Mr. Musk advocated for the abolition of EVMs, claiming that, while tiny, the chance of EVM hacking by humans or Artificial Intelligence (AI) remains substantial. Mr. Musk was responding to reports of voting irregularities in Puerto Rico’s primary elections after discovering a software flaw that allowed the machines to compute vote totals inaccurately.

‘I’m happy to run a tutorial’
In response to Mr. Musk’s tweet, the former Union Minister stated that his views may be applicable to nations such as the United States, where standard computing platforms are utilised to develop Internet-connected voting machines, but they do not apply to India.

Mr. Chandrasekhar went on to say that Indian EVMs are ‘custom developed, secure, and isolated from any network or media.’

“No connection, Bluetooth, WiFi, or Internet. In other words, there is no way in. Mr. Chandrasekhar stressed that factory-programmed controllers cannot be reprogrammed.