Elon Musk advises against using electronic voting machines. Examining their functionality.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, sparked a discussion about the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs), expressing concerns about potential vulnerabilities to hacking and advocating for their elimination. His statement on X (formerly Twitter) prompted senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to voice support for Musk, decrying EVMs as a “black box” in India and raising transparency concerns in the electoral process. The electronic voting process in India involves the control unit staying with a polling officer while the balloting unit is concealed to ensure voter privacy. Citizens verify their identity with the polling officer before pressing the ballot button to cast their vote.

The voter then selects their preferred candidate by pressing the blue button, with a special Braille script available for visually impaired voters. Once the vote is cast, the control unit emits a beep, and the total number of votes recorded is displayed on an LED screen. After all votes are recorded, the unit is sealed, and a “result” button is used during the counting process to calculate the votes.