U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on March 24, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest executive order, issued on Tuesday (March 25, 2025), calls for sweeping electoral reforms in the United States, of which the most crucial one mandates documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. Mr. Trump’s order made note of India’s voter identification system, as it called for honest elections within the United States.
Stating that free, fair, and honest elections—unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion—are essential to the United States, the order noted that the country “lags behind other nations in enforcing basic and necessary election protections.”
Also read | Trump signs executive order on U.S. elections: What it entails, and will it actually stick?
It then went on to compare America’s voter practices against India, Brazil, and four other nations
India and Brazil, the Executive Order read, tie voter identification to a biometric database, while the United States largely relies on self-attestation for citizenship.
Other countries that were cited included, Germany and Canada (for their paper ballot systems), and Denmark and Sweden (for limiting mail-in voting)
Mr. Trump has long questioned the U.S. electoral system and continues to falsely claim that his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud. The President and his Republican allies also have made baseless claims about widespread voting by non-citizens, which is illegal and rarely occurs.
Last year the Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved a bill that would ban non-citizens from registering to vote in federal elections, a practice that is already illegal. It did not pass the Senate, which was then controlled by Democrats.
The White House’s order seeks to achieve similar goals. Voting rights groups argued that it, like the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act that did not become law, would disenfranchise voters, particularly people of color, who do not have access to passports or other required identification.
“We’ve got to straighten out our elections,” Mr. Trump said on Tuesday as he signed the order at the White House. “This country is so sick because of the elections, the fake elections and the bad elections, we’re going to straighten that out one way or the other.”
The order is likely to draw legal challenges.
(With inputs from Reuters)
Published – March 26, 2025 11:41 am IST
