‘India Counted 640 Million Votes In A Day, But California...’: Elon Musk Slams US Poll System

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk

New Delhi: Elon Musk on Sunday praised India’s electoral system, comparing it to that of the United States. The Tesla CEO took a jab at America’s 2024 Presidential election, which concluded earlier this month on November 5. While Donald Trump secured a clear mandate to return to the White House, the vote counting process is still ongoing. 

On his platform, ‘X,’ Musk shared a post stating, “India counted 640 million votes in a single day. California is still counting 15 million votes... 18 days later.” He captioned it as “Tragic.” 

Tragic https://t.co/K7pjfWhg6D — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2024

California, the most populous US state with nearly 39 million residents, saw at least 16 million voters participate in the November 5 elections. Despite this high turnout, the state remains one of the slowest to tally and report election results, largely due to its reliance on mail-in voting. Election officials note that processing mail-in ballots, which require individual validation, is significantly more time-consuming than scanning in-person votes. This delay, compounded by the state’s vast size, means final results could take weeks to determine, similar to the 2020 presidential election.

The vote-counting process in the United States is laborious. Ballots are counted manually, and results are shared with parties, officials, and the public. While preliminary results are usually announced on Election Night, final tallies, especially in close races, can take days to complete as every vote is carefully verified.

In contrast, India employs Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for vote counting, with one EVM randomly selected per assembly segment of a parliamentary constituency for VVPAT matching. This efficient process allows the total votes, including postal ballots, to be tallied within a single day or just a few hours.  

The United States recently held its four-yearly presidential election, electing Donald J. Trump as the new President. The Republican Party secured 312 electoral votes, surpassing the 270-vote threshold needed for victory. Meanwhile, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris managed to secure 226 electoral votes. Trump will officially assume the presidency after the inauguration ceremony at the U.S. Capitol on January 20.