Trump finds role model in Gyanesh, wants voter ID cards to ‘SAVE America’

US President Donald Trump has found an unlikely electoral role model in India, invoking chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar as he makes another forceful pitch for stricter voter identification laws in America.

In a post on Truth Social on Monday, Trump cited India’s election system while urging lawmakers to back the SAVE America Act, a sweeping proposal that would require proof of citizenship for voter registration, mandate photo identification at the polls and sharply restrict voting by mail.

Trump recalled a recent interaction in which, he said, Kumar questioned US officials over how American elections could be conducted without a valid photo identification card.

“Earlier this month, India’s chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, asked our Administration – How can you have Elections in the US without a valid Photo ID,” Trump wrote.

Pointing to India’s massive electoral exercise, Trump said around 646 million people voted in the country’s most recent general election, with less than one per cent casting ballots by mail. He also claimed every voter was required to present a valid photo identity document.

For Trump, the figures offer a compelling contrast with the American system — and fresh ammunition for his campaign to tighten voting rules. “We need to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, now,” he declared, arguing that stronger identification requirements would help guard against electoral fraud.

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act has become a centrepiece of Trump’s push to reshape US election laws. Yet the proposal has encountered resistance and division on Capitol Hill, with Democrats and Republicans split over several of its provisions. The US Senate adjourned for a five-week recess earlier this month without taking concrete steps towards its passage.

The White House, meanwhile, has held up India and Brazil as examples of countries that link voter identification with biometric databases, contrasting them with the US system, where voters generally rely on self-attestation of eligibility.

Beyond voter identification, the legislation carries a broader conservative agenda. It also seeks to bar transgender women and girls from competing in women’s sports and prohibit gender-transition surgeries for minors.

Trump’s latest intervention thus places India’s electoral machinery — and Kumar’s reported question to US officials — at the heart of his argument: if the world’s largest democracy can conduct elections with stringent identity checks, he asks, why can’t America do the same?

With agency inputs