Elon Musk marvels at India for counting ‘640 million votes in 1 day’, slams ‘California is still…’

Elon Musk praised India's election process on Saturday and flagged the painfully slow vote-counting process in many American states. While lauding the counting of nearly 640 million votes in India during the Lok Sabha Election, the Tesla CEO also took a jibe at the US Presidential Election vote counting, which is still underway in California nearly 20 days after it began on November 5.

The SpaceX CEO's comment on India's electoral system came a day after vote counting for Maharashtra and Jharkhand state assembly elections and by-elections concluded on Saturday. 

“India counted 640 million votes in 1 day. California is still counting votes,” wrote Elon Musk on X, while sharing a screenshot of an article on Indian election vote counting.

The tech billionaire's post comes after California is still counting votes for the US Presidential Election 2024 held on November 5. According to the Los Angeles Times, citing the Secretary of State's office, an estimated 570,500 ballots statewide were yet to be counted.

Maharashtra and Jharkhand Assembly Elections 

Maharashtra and Jharkhand Assembly Elections voting were held in a single phase on November 20. The vote counting was held on November 23. 

According to the Election Commission of India, BJP won 132 seats in Maharashtra. Shiv Sena won 57 seats, Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) won 41 seats, Congress was limited to 16 seats, and Sharad Pawar's NCP bagged 10 seats. 

Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, Hemant Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) emerged victorious on 33 seats, BJP won 21 seats, Congress won 16 seats, and RJD secured 4 seats.  

US Presidential Elections in California

California is one of the most populous states in America. Elections in the state are normally held by mail and require more time and effort to verify mail-in ballots than the votes made in person. 

The US follows a completely different process for election and vote counting than India. The vote-counting data is also released differently in the two states. In the US, the news agency AP and a few other media outlets provide the vote counting data, according to The Hindu. 

In India, the primary source of vote counting and electoral data is the Election Commission of India, where people can also track the real-time vote counting, initial trends and the detail of every constituency.