Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made a strong statement on Saturday about electronic voting machines, stating that they should be eliminated due to the high risk of being hacked by artificial intelligence.
In his post on social media platform X, Musk said, "We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high."
Elon Musk responded to a post by US presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy Jr. regarding electronic voting machine (EVM) irregularities during elections in Puerto Rico. In Kennedy's original post on X, he expressed his concerns about the honesty of the voting process, to which Musk added his opinion on election security.
Citing The Associated Press, US presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said, “Puerto Rico’s primary elections just experienced hundreds of voting irregularities related to electronic voting machines. Luckily, there was a paper trail so the problem was identified and vote tallies corrected.”
“What happens in jurisdictions where there is no paper trail? US citizens need to know that every one of their votes was counted, and that their elections cannot be hacked. We need to return to paper ballots to avoid electronic interference with elections,” he further added.
“My administration will require paper ballots, and we will guarantee honest and fair elections,” he said.
Puerto Rico Reassesses Electronic Voting Following Discrepancies
According to a report in the Associated Press, Puerto Rico's elections commission announced on Tuesday that it is reassessing its agreement with a U.S. electronic voting company following the learning that there were numerous in the recent primaries.
Jessika Padilla Rivera, the election commission’s interim president, said to the Associated Press that the issue arose due to a software malfunction in electronic voting machines provided by Dominion Voting Systems, which led to incorrect vote totals.
