Topline
Elon Musk waded into a controversy over the security of India’s electronic voting machines (EVMs)—a hot-button political issue in the country—after he suggested the machines are susceptible to hacking, the latest in a long line of controversies involving the billionaire and foreign officials.
Key Facts
Musk responded to an X post by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Saturday about voting machine issues in the Puerto Rico primaries, saying: “We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high.”
India’s former junior IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar pushed back, saying it was a “huge sweeping generalization…that implies no one can build secure digital hardware.”
Chandrasekhar argued Musk’s view may apply to the U.S. and other places “where they use regular computer platforms to build Internet-connected Voting machines” and claimed: “Indian EVMs are custom designed, secure and isolated from any network or media.”
But Musk doubled down, saying: “Anything can be hacked.”
The former minister responded by saying the billionaire was “technically right” when it comes to certain hardware and software but that was a different issue from EVMs being secure and reliable.
The billionaire’s comments drew in responses from India’s opposition leaders including Rahul Gandhi, who appeared to side with Musk and said India’s EVMs are a “black box” that “nobody is allowed to scrutinize”, and Akhilesh Yadav who cited the billionaire and said “renowned technology experts are openly writing about the danger of EVM tampering.
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Tangent
In recent years, the security of electronic voting machines in the U.S. has emerged as a contentious political issue. Right-wing figures, supporting former President Donald Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories about a stolen 2020 election have argued that the machines can be hacked or breached to alter results. Dominion and Smartmatic—two companies that manufacture such machines—have been at the center of multiple unproven conspiracy theories and have led to high-profile court cases. Experts have noted that while no digital system is completely invulnerable, the U.S. has invested nearly a billion dollars to improve election security. The federal government’s top cybersecurity officials and various state election officials even said the 2020 elections were the “most secure in American history,” and despite multiple court battles, no evidence of widespread hacking or electoral fraud has emerged.
News Peg
The reliability and security of electronic voting machines are a sensitive political issue in India, with several opposition parties arguing that they impact the sanctity of the electoral process. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have largely dismissed this argument and insisted that EVMs are secure. India’s Election Commission, which also faced intense criticism from opposition politicians during the recent national elections, has also pushed back against questions about the security of EVMs.
Crucial Quote
Citing Musk’s post on X, Rahul Gandhi wrote: “Serious concerns are being raised about transparency in our electoral process. Democracy ends up becoming a sham and prone to fraud when institutions lack accountability.”
Key Background
Musk has publicly clashed with foreign governments on various policy disagreements—usually involving content moderation on X—in recent months. In April, Musk butted heads with Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes after the judge accused X of hosting influential accounts that spread fake news and misinformation. While X had initially complied with the judge’s order to suspend certain accounts, Musk interjected and reinstated them, claiming the court’s order was unconstitutional. The billionaire later claimed the platform was being asked to “suspend sitting members of the Brazilian parliament and many journalists.” A few weeks later, Musk was drawn into another major international spat after refusing to comply with the Australian government’s order to take down posts and videos about a knife attack on a church bishop that police say was a terror attack. Musk argued Australian authorities were trying to “police the internet” and “censor debate” by ordering X to take down the stabbing videos globally. Musk has since avoided engaging further on Indian EVMs—a departure from his usual combative stance on such issues—amid efforts by both him and the Indian government to court each other.
Further Reading
“Happy To Run Tutorial, Elon”: Ex-IT Minister On “EVM Can Be Hacked” Talk (NDTV)
