Electronic voting machines (EVMs) were once again in focus with Elon Musk, the multi-billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX, and former Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar engaging in a debate on X after Musk suggested eliminating the machines following reports of EVM irregularities in Puerto Rico’s primary elections.
Chandrasekhar, a former MoS for electronics and IT, strongly disagreed with Musk and said it was a “huge sweeping generalisation” that held no truth for the EVMs used in India which are standalone systems not connected to the internet.
“We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high," Musk wrote on X, sharing a post by Robert F Kennedy Jr which cited media reports about hundreds of voting irregularities related to EVMs in Puerto Rico.
Chandrasekhar argued that Musk’s view may be applicable to the US and other places where regular computing platforms are used to build “internet-connected voting machines”. “This is a huge sweeping generalisation statement that implies no one can build secure digital hardware. Wrong,’ he added.
Chandrasekhar added, “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.”
He said EVMs could be “architected and built correctly”, as India has done, and even offered to run a tutorial for Musk on the subject. Replying to this, Musk said, “Anything can be hacked.”
Chandrasekhar agreed that “anything is possible”, at least in theory. “With quantum compute, I can decrypt any level of encryption. With lab-level tech and plenty of resources, I can hack any digital hardware/ system including the flight controls of a glass cockpit of a jet, etc. But that’s a different type of conversation from EVMs being secure and reliable,” he said.
The Supreme Court on April 26 upheld the EVM system of polling and refused a plea to revive paper ballots, saying “blind distrust” of an institution or a system “bred unwarranted scepticism and impeded progress”.
