New York: US President Donald Trump has cited India’s requirement for voters to link their Aadhaar card with their Election Photo Identification Card (EPIC) as an example of a nation ensuring the integrity of its election and contrasted it with the lax US voter identification system.
In an order on Tuesday requiring voters in federal elections to prove their citizenship, he compared the US and Indian practices, writing in the very first paragraph that India was “tying voter identification to a biometric database, while the United States largely relies on self-attestation for citizenship”.
“Despite pioneering self-government, the United States now fails to enforce basic and necessary election protections employed by modern, developed nations, as well as those still developing”, he wrote. Under his order, voters would be required to provide a passport or certain other documents to prove their citizenship to vote.
In contrast to the US, which does not have a national election system, in India, the election rules, laws, machinery, and systems run by a powerful national Election Commission enforce balloting integrity across the country.
The Election Laws (Amendment) Act passed in 2021 introduced linking Aadhaar with EPIC. The Election Commission is finalising the mechanism for completing this provision and some voters have already done so. The US does not have the equivalent to India’s Election Commission, and its Election Commission only enforces election financing regulations.
Elections in the US are conducted under state and local laws, which vary by state, and even the voting machines used and the system of the primaries or caucuses for selecting party candidates in elections vary.
California will come into direct conflict with Trump’s order because of a state law that goes to the extreme of making it illegal to ask to see a voter’s identification. Unlike India and many countries like those in Europe, the US does not have a national identification card, and people use their driver’s licence as photo identification or their Social Security number from the government retirement programme.
Some states issue voter ID cards, but without photos, while others do not even do that. Trump’s order is certain to be challenged in courts because the conduct of elections, even federal ones, is a state subject under the Constitution. Democrats have opposed identification requirements, asserting that poor people may not be able to get photo IDs.
Republicans assert that because of the lax ID requirements, election fraud happens. The early voting and postal voting rules also vary by state, and they have been the targets of Trump’s criticism after he lost the 2020 election. His order will tighten rules for postal voting. Trump contrasted the loose voting procedures in the US with other countries.
“Germany and Canada require the use of paper ballots, counted in public by local officials, which substantially reduces the number of disputes as compared to the American patchwork of voting methods that can lead to basic chain-of-custody problems”, he wrote.
“Countries like Denmark and Sweden sensibly limit mail-in voting to those unable to vote in person and do not count late-arriving votes regardless of the date of postmark”, he wrote.
In contrast, he said, “Many American elections now feature mass voting by mail, with many officials accepting ballots without postmarks or those received well after Election Day”. He also cited Brazil’s requirement to link national biometric national identification with voter ID.
