Tesla and SpaceX founder, ELon Musk, recently reacted to Puerto Rico’s primary elections which allegedly experienced voting irregularities, and questioned the validity of the elections carried out through electronic voting machines (EVMs).

The billionaire took to X saying, “We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high.”

We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high. https://t.co/PHzJsoXpLh

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 15, 2024

His statement, however, received a reply from former Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar today.

He stated that Elon Musk’s take on eliminating EVMs from voting is a “huge sweeping generalisation” which holds no truth, inviting the Tesla CEO to come and learn some lessons in India.

“This is a huge sweeping generalisation statement that implies no one can build secure digital hardware. Wrong,” replied the former minister.

According to Chandrasekhar, Musk’s view may apply to the US and other places where they use regular computing platforms to build “Internet-connected Voting machines.”

Chandrasekhar further rejected Musk’s statement, saying that Indian EVMs are custom-designed, secure and isolated from any network or media.

“No connectivity, no bluetooth, wifi, Internet; there is no way in. Factory-programmed controllers that cannot be reprogrammed,” informed the former minister.

“Electronic voting machines can be architected and built right as India has done. We would be happy to run a tutorial, Elon,” Chandrasekhar added.

(With inputs from syndicated feed)