Amid concerns raised by Space X and Tesla CEO Elon Musk over risks of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) being hacked, Congress Rahul Gandhi asked the Election Commission to either ensure complete transparency of the machines or to just abolish them Taking to X, Gandhi wrote, “When democratic institutions are captured, the only safeguard lies in electoral processes that are transparent to the public. EVM is currently a black box. EC must either ensure complete transparency of the machines and processes or abolish them.” On Sunday, Gandhi called the EVMs in India a “black box” and claimed that serious concerns have erupted in the “transparency” of the electoral processes in India and that the public is “prone to fraud when institutions lack accountability”. Musk called for scrapping the use of EVMs, citing high risks of them being hacked. “We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high,” Musk posted on X. Countering the statements, BJP leader and former minister of state for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who called Musk’s assertion a “sweeping generalization”, dejected the concerns for Indian EVMs and stated that they are custom-designed, secure, and isolated from any network or media. While Chandrasekhar didn’t deny Musk’s claim that “anything can be hacked”, he said “agree to disagree” in context with the EVM encryption. The integrity of EVMs is a common subject of discussion in India, especially leading up to elections, and has been the focus of various legal disputes. Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav too questioned the transparency. “Today, when fears of EVM tampering are being expressed in many elections of the world and the world’s renowned technology experts are openly writing about the danger of EVM tampering, then what is the reason behind the insistence on using EVM, BJP should clarify this,” Yadav posted on X.
