New Delhi: US President Donald Trump’s support for ballot papers during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi has provided fresh ammunition to India’s opposition, which has been critical of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and demanded a return to paper ballots.
Trump endorsed paper ballots for elections in response to a question about the possibility of interference by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in the 2020 US elections and last year’s elections in India.
“So it could have had a role. There are a lot of bad things that happened in 2020. I think bad things happened in 2024 but we won by a tremendous margin, we won every swing state, we won the popular vote by millions of votes, it was too big,” Trump said.
“We are looking to go to a system now much different where there is one-day voting, voter ID… We have to do that… and paper ballots, we want paper ballots, and when they do that, we are going to clean it up very well,” he added.
This isn’t the first time Trump has spoken in support of paper ballots and raised concerns about voter fraud.
He was particularly vocal after Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 Presidential election. In the run-up to the 2020 elections, he repeatedly questioned the mail-in voting system and continued to claim “fraud” after his defeat.
As the Republican presidential nominee last year, Trump once again aired his support for paper ballots in an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, even citing Elon Musk’s endorsement of the voting method.
Earlier in 2012, he described President Barack Obama’s victory over Republican Mitt Romney as a “total sham” on ‘X’.
Election administration in the US is highly decentralised, with each state having its own voting procedures. Therefore, US voters may vote through paper ballots or electronic systems, depending on where they reside.
The Congress was quick to seize on Trump’s comments. It has long been demanding a return to paper ballots, saying EVMs are susceptible to manipulation. It specifically alleged EVM manipulation in the last two assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana.
Reacting to Trump’s support for paper ballots, Congress leader Supriya Shrinate said the Congress wasn’t relying on Trump’s endorsement but the Election Commission must answer tough questions.
“India is a democracy and Indian political parties will figure out the way forward. We are not dependent on Trump. We have been at the forefront of saying that the Election Commission has some very, very tough questions that they need to answer,” Shrinate told ThePrint. “The EC has been found wanting in its task of conducting free and fair elections… We want the Prime Minister and the Election Commission to be accountable.”
Shrinate said the job of the Election Commission is to ensure that every citizen who votes is satisfied with the power of their adult franchise. “Even if one person raises questions or objections or has a doubt about the fate of their vote, and is convinced that their vote did not go where it was intended, then the Election Commission has failed in its duty,” she said.
Congress leader Abhay Dubey told ThePrint that Trump has “shown the mirror to this government”.
“When Modi wasn’t the prime minister, then he would give examples of the US and other countries to say that elections don’t happen with EVMs anywhere. It’s all through ballot papers. When the credibility of a democracy is in danger, steps should be taken to protect it so that people’s faith in democracy remains.”
However, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader R.P. Singh dismissed concerns about EVM manipulation.
Singh told ThePrint that although the opposition had repeatedly questioned EVMs, it hadn’t provided any evidence to support its claims of tampering.
“It’s up to them (the US) to decide how they run their democracy. Ours is a functional democracy that is working perfectly. We also have one-day voting in a few states. Our population is also three times the population of America and it functions perfectly okay,” Singh added.
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‘If a country like the US can’
Trump’s remarks have given opposition parties greater confidence in their concerns over EVMs.
Nationalist Congress Party (SP) national spokesperson Anish Gawande told ThePrint that while concerns over the security of electronic voting had become a global issue, India’s reluctance to even have that conversation was a challenge.
“Political parties have consistently maintained that we must explore the possibility of electronic voting being compromised, and present paper ballots as an alternative,” he said.
Gawande said citizens’ faith in EVMs was declining and political parties were simply platforming this anxiety around EVMs.
“Supriya tai (Supriya Sule) has consistently said that she has won elections through EVMs five times. We have never dismissed the possibility of using EVMs, or claimed that all EVMs are hacked,” he told ThePrint.
“But as a political party if we do not acknowledge that there is an erosion of faith in our electoral process, then we would be doing a disservice to the voices of citizens who come to us with these concerns.”
In Maharashtra, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies — the Congress, the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP (SP)—blamed EVM manipulation for their loss after the Mahayuti alliance, comprising the Shiv Sena, the BJP and the NCP, won 230 seats out of 288 in the Assembly.
Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Anand Dubey said the world over paper ballots are considered the most reliable form of voting, as long as there is no booth capturing or electoral fraud.
“If a developed country like America can conduct elections on ballot paper, then even we should try it once. And Modiji and Trumpji are friends, and if a friend listens to another friend, then their friendship will get strengthened,” he told ThePrint.
Samajwadi Party’s national spokesperson Ashutosh Verma also supported the arguments in favour of paper ballots.
“When even a single voter has a doubt on EVMs, our Constitution gives us a right to raise these questions,” Verma told ThePrint. “It has been made very clear by Akhilesh Yadav ji in Parliament that even if we win 80 out of 80 seats in the Lok Sabha, we will remove EVMs when we come to power because a lot of questions are raised against it.”
“It could be that there is no problem (with EVMs), but our Constitution depends on the belief and faith of our voters and electors,” he added.
Opposition against EVMs
Several opposition leaders have raised concerns about the alleged manipulation of EVMs in the past few years. In November last year, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge called for a return to the paper ballots, saying votes from Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in their favour were “disappearing”.
“The votes cast by SCs, STs and OBCs in our favour are disappearing. We need to get rid of EVMs. We don’t need EVMs. We need ballot papers,” Kharge was quoted as saying at a Samvidhan Rakshak Abhiyaan programme organised by the Congress. “Let them keep the EVMs in the houses of (PM Narendra) Modi or (Home Minister Amit) Shah, or they can keep them in the godowns in Ahmedabad.”
He had even urged Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi to lead a campaign to raise awareness over the need to return to paper ballots.
In December, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) supremo and former Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had said he was in favour of paper ballots, days after he called for an enquiry into alleged discrepancies in EVM voting during the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
However, not everybody agrees. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah—whose National Conference is part of the INDIA bloc—took a dig at the Congress in December last year, saying voting machines “cannot be a problem only when you lose elections”.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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