"India Counted 640 Million Votes in a Day, California Still Counting," Elon Musk Highlights Efficiency Gap
Elon Musk has ignited a global debate on election efficiency by praising India's speedy vote-counting process and meanwhile slamming delays in California's vote tallying. Taking to his X (formerly Twitter) handle, Elon Musk highlighted how India had counted 640 million votes in just one day after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections compared with California which is still experiencing delays, with more than 300,000 ballots still uncounted nearly 20 days after voting began.
India's Quick Vote Counting System
India's Election Commission employs cutting-edge technology and centralized monitoring to conduct the vote counting process efficiently and accurately:
India counted 640 million votes in 1 day.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2024
California is still counting votes 🤦♂️ https://t.co/ai8JmWxas6
Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs): These were first used in the year 2000. They enabled quick counting with accurate percentages.
Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT): For making the process transparent, this introduced paper slips in case of a recount.
Simultaneous Counting: Votes from all 543 parliamentary constituencies are counted simultaneously, keeping with Supreme Court ruling as regards counting postal ballots.
India's efficiency came to the fore during recent state elections where a whopping 90 million votes were counted within hours with Maharashtra alone tallying up results faster than California which has four times more population than that of Maharashtra in terms of population.
California's Inefficient Process
California's usage of mail-in ballots considerably slows down the process for the following reasons:
Signature Verification: Every ballot envelope must be individually verified.
Sorting and Processing: Ballots undergo multiple steps before they can be tallied.
Decentralized Oversight: Unlike India’s central Election Commission, the US relies on state and local election offices with varying laws and resources.
These inefficiencies have drawn widespread criticism, including Musk’s observation that India’s centralized approach far outpaces California’s fragmented system.
A Call for Reform?
Musk's comparison reignited debate over updating election systems in America. On Tuesday, many began mentioning the example of India, where technology and centralized review are said to help prevent such situations. The growing discussion underscores the importance of efficient and transparent electoral processes in democracies worldwide.
