Billionaire Elon Musk has spoken out after Puerto Rico's elections board said it was reviewing its contract with a U.S. electronic voting company after finding hundreds of anomalies following the island's contested primary elections.
Musk's response came after independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy posted an article on X (formerly Twitter) about voter fraud linked to Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
“Fortunately, because there was a paper trail, the problem was identified and the vote tally was corrected,” he argued, asking, “What happens in jurisdictions where there is no paper trail?”
Kennedy said paper ballots must be used to prevent electronic interference with the election.
“The American people need to know that every vote will be counted and that our election cannot be hacked. We need to return to paper ballots to avoid electronic interference in our elections. My Administration will mandate paper ballots and guarantee honest and fair elections,” he concluded.
Musk initially responded to Kennedy's post with an exclamation point “!”
Pickax CEO Jeff Dornik wrote, “Beyond just paper ballots, the most important thing is to follow chain of custody laws. Many states aren't strict on this, which has led to fraud, or at least the appearance of possible fraud. To ensure election security, make chain of custody laws part of your plan.”
“This should have been federal law decades ago,” one person commented, while another added, “Paper ballots. You expect all the votes to be counted by midnight? Impossible.”
In response to a question from an X user, Dolnick said, “It was possible even before the machines came along.”
Elon Musk shares his thoughts on the EVM
Tesla CEO Musk shared Kennedy's post on X and expressed his own opinion on the EVM, emphasizing that it should be eliminated. Musk further stated that the EVM can be hacked by artificial intelligence or humans.
“Electronic voting machines should be abolished. The risk of human or AI hacking, while small, is still too high,” X's CEO wrote.
One X user expressed a similar opinion, writing, “I agree,” while another said, “Mail-in voting and drop boxes should also be abolished.”
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What happened in the Puerto Rican primary?
According to the commission's interim chair, Jessica Padilla Rivera, EVMs provided by Dominion Voting Systems Inc. miscalculated the vote totals in Puerto Rico's primary election due to a software glitch.
The results of the June 2 primary, which pinpointed a winner, are not in dispute, but in some circumstances the number of votes reported by the machines was lower than the number of votes reported on paper, and in other cases the number of votes reported by the machines overturned the number of votes received by certain candidates or showed zero votes.
The problem, Padilla said, is that there will be an election in November, so the island needs to be assured that not only will the machines give accurate results, but that the results match what is reported.
More than 6,000 Dominion voting machines were used in the primary election, and the company said the software problem was caused by an electronic file used to transmit the machine results.
