Trump lauds India's election system, rising anger in India at SIR exclusion | Gravitas

US President Donald Trump has been on a mission to mandate the requirement of a voter ID, to prevent non-citizens from voting in elections.

Trump has now lauded India's voter ID system, renewing his appeal for the passage of the 'Save America Act'.

Trump revealed that India's Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had questioned his administration on how people can exercise their franchise in US polls without furnishing a voter ID.

Highlighting India's case, Trump said, “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.”

While this legislation has been passed by the US House of Representatives on multiple occasions, it has failed to clear the Senate so far.

This bill makes it compulsory for states to register only those people as voters who can prove their citizenship via documents such as passport, birth certificate, a government-issued ID or a military record showing place of birth.

Additionally, people will be able to cast their vote in federal elections only after producing a valid voter ID.

While India's election process remains robust, with the EC issuing photo identity cards to voters since 1993, its decision to conduct a special intensive revision of electoral rolls has been drawing ire from the opposition.

This is because a large number of voters are being deleted.

Take Maharashtra for example.

While the state has 9.78 crore registered voters, enumeration forms of over two crore voters have not been received.

This implies that nearly 21% of the total voters will not feature on the draft electoral roll set to be published on August 24.

On its part though, the EC has categorised these voters as absent, duplicate, deceased and permanently shifted.

In the next phase of SIR, aggrieved persons can also file an appeal against their exclusion, or register as new voters if they have shifted to a new place.

In India's national capital, the issue is more acute.

As per data released by the chief electoral officer, at least one in three Delhi voters face the risk of deletion.

This is because 33% of enumeration forms are yet to be submitted.

This has now triggered a row with Delhi Congress president Devender Yadav accusing booth level officers of not distributing the enumeration forms in unauthorised colonies and villages.

However, this allegation was debunked by EC, which claimed to have distributed SIR forms to all existing voters.

While this may come across as a bureaucratic exercise, it can have serious implications from an electoral perspective.

For instance, in this year's West Bengal assembly polls, a staggering 91 lakh voters were deleted.

While 27 lakh voters challenged their exclusion, they were unable to exercise their franchise, as their appeals weren't heard in time.

Apart from the legal argument, the SIR process raises another question.

With India not even having a standard citizenship document, why is the onus on voters to furnish their as well as their parents' records?

And if the discrepancy in the electoral rolls is so huge, how were these people allowed to vote for so many years?

While the debate continues, it is clear that every eligible voter deserves to be included in the electoral roll.