US President Donald Trump on Tuesday cited India's electoral system to renew his push for a national voter identification law, while recalling his administration's conversation with country's Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar about holding elections in US without photo ID.
Trump's claim could not be independently corroborated with any confirmed exchange between the Election Commission of India and the Trump administration.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote that Kumar "asked our Administration — How can you have Elections in the U.S. without a valid Photo ID? India's last Election had 646,000,000 Voters! Less than 1% voted by mail, and every single Voter had to have a VALID Photo Identity Document."
He added, "We need to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, now!"
The reference to Indian polls is broadly consistent with official figures: the 2024 Lok Sabha election recorded roughly 642 million votes cast among nearly 970 million registered electors, with postal ballots restricted to limited categories such as armed forces personnel, election duty staff, senior citizens and people with disabilities.
Trump has repeatedly used Truth Social to press for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship to register and photo identification to vote.
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The House passed the bill in February with a narrow 218-213 vote, but it has since stalled in the Senate, where Republicans hold 53 seats against the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster.
Trump has previously threatened to withhold his signature from other legislation until the bill clears Congress and floated issuing an executive order to impose voter ID rules ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Critics, including Democratic lawmakers and voting rights groups, argue the measure could disenfranchise millions of eligible citizens, particularly those without easy access to citizenship documents or ID matching current legal names, such as married women who changed their surnames.
Several Republican-led states, including Louisiana, Florida and South Dakota, have separately passed their own citizenship and ID verification laws this year.
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