Elon Musk again rakes up EVM issue before US elections, X users not convinced

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday, 9 July, again raked up the electronic voting machine (EVM) issue before the US presidential elections in November, vouching for paper ballots and in-person voting mechanisms.

In a post on X social media platform, the tech billionaire said, “EVMs and anything mailed in is too risky”.

“We should mandate paper ballots and in-person voting only,” said the X owner, displaying some US-based news stories about EVMs.

However, not many X users supported his theory.

“On the contrary, paper ballots are easily manipulated through booth capturing. EVMs with factory-embedded programmes cannot be hacked easily and must be used,” said an X user.

In an earlier post, Musk claimed that when combined with main-in ballots, the system is “designed” to make it impossible to prove fraud.

“Mail-in and drop box ballots should not be allowed, as cameras on the in-person voting stations would at least prevent large-scale fraud by counting how many people showed up vs ballots cast,” the billionaire argued.

Last month, Musk and former Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar had a tug-of-war on X regarding EVMs.

When Chandrasekhar told the tech billionaire that Indian EVMs are custom-designed, secure and isolated from any network or media, the Tesla CEO replied: "Anything can be hacked".

"Electronic voting machines can be architected and built right as India has done. We would be happy to run a tutorial, Elon," Chandrasekhar replied to the tech billionaire.

Musk had reacted to Puerto Rico’s primary elections which allegedly experienced voting irregularities.

Amid raging controversy over Musk's EVM claim, Shiv Sena MP and former Union minister Milind Deora said Silicon Valley's Big Tech billionaires should not meddle in India's democracy.