DOGE's USAID revelation: India more than four times ahead of US in voter participation

As many as 64.64 crore people voted in the Lok Sabha polls held earlier this year with women voters outnumbering men, according to statistical data released by the Election Commission.

The Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) decision to cancel multiple US government-funded international projects, including $21 million allocated for voter turnout initiatives in India, has kicked off an intense debate among major political parties about foreign involvement in India's electoral process.

Senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party questioned who would benefit from such a fund, stating that it certainly was not the ruling party in India. "Who gains from this? Not the ruling party for sure!" Malviya remarked, suggesting that such funding amounted to external interference in India's electoral process.

The department in an X post noted that $486 million was to be sent to the “Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening,” including $21 million for voter turnout in India.

Voter turnout in Lok Sabha elections

The overall turnout in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections stood at 65.79% — 1.61 percentage points lower than the turnout in 2019, data released by the Election Commission on Thursday showed. The poll body released the final turnout data just two days after the results were announced on Tuesday. According to the EC, male voters had a marginally higher turnout (65.80%) than female voters (65.78%). Voters of the ‘other genders’ category had a turnout of 27.08% — an increase from 14.64% in 2019.

As many as 64.64 crore people voted in the Lok Sabha polls held earlier this year with women voters outnumbering men, according to statistical data released by the Election Commission. The female voter turnout stood at 65.78 per cent as compared to 65.55 per cent for male electors, the Election Commission said. The number of women candidates contesting the polls this time was 800, as against 726 in the 2019 polls, the poll body said.

Growing electorate over the years: US & India

After the conclusion of the polls, CEC Rajiv Kumar asserted that India made history with a remarkable turnout of 64.2 crore voters in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. He further highlighted that this figure surpasses the combined total voters of the G7 nations by 1.5 times, with an impressive 31.2 crore women participating, setting a global benchmark. Notably, only 39 re-polls were necessary this year, a significant drop from the 540 re-polls conducted during the 2019 elections.

The voter turnout in the 2024 general elections dipped by a little more than 1.3 percentage points in the past decade, from 67.3% in 2014 to 65.978% this year, even as the number of votes cast increased by 5.3%, from 614 million in 2019 to 646.4 million in 2024, the Election Commission of India (ECI) said on Thursday. According to 42 statistical reports released by the ECI, the number of eligible voters rose by 7.43% from 911.9 million in 2019 to 979.8 million in 2024. These reports are released a few months after every Lok Sabha election.

More than 150 million (15 crore) Americans voted in the 2024 general election, and for the first time in two decades the Republican presidential candidate – President-elect Donald Trump – won the popular vote. In comparison, the 2020 general election had a 66% turnout rate, the highest voter turnout rate of the 21st century due to the expansion of mail-in and early voting on account of the COVID-19 pandemic. This contrasts with the 2016 general election, which had a 60% turnout rate of its voting-eligible population, and the 2012 general election’s even lower turnout rate of 58%.

Voter turnout in the US

According to Associated Press elections data, more than 153 million ballots were cast in this year’s race between Republican Donald Trump, now the president-elect, and Democrat Kamala Harris, the vice president, with hundreds of thousands of more still being tallied in slower-counting states such as California. When those ballots are fully tabulated, the number of votes will come even closer to the 158 million in the 2020 presidential contest, which was the highest turnout election since women were given the right to vote more than a century ago.

In relative terms, voter turnout nationally in 2024 was 63.9 percent. That is below the 66.6 percent voter turnout recorded in 2020, which was the highest voter turnout rate in a U.S. presidential election since 1900.

Other scrapped projects

In addition to the $21 million for India’s voter turnout, other projects were also scrapped, such as $10 million earmarked for voluntary medical male circumcision in Mozambique and $486 million designated for the ‘Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening.’ The latter allocation included $22 million for an inclusive political process in Moldova, along with the $21 million for voter turnout in India.