US, India Elections
By Rajiv Gupta
Winston Churchill is reported to have said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried.” With all its flaws, democracy is celebrated in large parts of the world and 2024 saw elections in the two largest democracies in the world: India and the US. But the process by which each country conducts elections is quite different, and this article will highlight some of the major differences.
Although both India and the US have two primary national political parties, there are no regional parties in the US, as we have in India. That does not mean that there are only two candidates for President in the US. In fact, the recently concluded 2024 elections had as many as eight contenders for the presidency, including from the Green Party, the Libertarian Party and others. By contrast, there are two major coalitions in India, headed by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress (INC) Party, which collectively constitute approximately 49 parties. Most of the parties in the coalition tend to be regional or representing a particular segment of the population.
However, there are no formal coalitions in the US political system and the smaller parties tend to represent specific voter interests, like the environment, lower taxes, etc. But, in the final analysis, except for the candidates from either the Republican or the Democratic party, the others do not get any sizeable number of votes and can act as spoilers for the two major candidates.
In the US, both the Democratic party as well as the Republican party have evolved considerably over the last two centuries. What the parties stand for and their base has undergone significant shifts over time. In the mid to late 1800s, the Democratic party was a pro-slavery party and largely more prevalent in the rural southern states of the US. The Republican party, on the other hand, included Abraham Lincoln and championed the anti-slavery movement. The Republicans were more concentrated in the Northern and industrial centres.
Today, the Democratic party tends to be more visible in the urban areas on both coasts as well as in the Midwest, while the Republicans have found a firmer base in the south and in the rural areas of central US. Ideologically, the Republican party has moved to the right, while the Democrats are to the left. Compare this with the relative consistency in ideology of the two major political parties in India. Broadly the BJP is still a right-wing party with a business perspective while the Congress is more identified with a socialist ideology.
This article will cover three aspects of the US election system to highlight the differences from the Indian system. First the system of selection of the individual party candidates is discussed. Unlike India, the US has a two-phase system for Presidential elections, the primaries and the general elections. Each party conducts primaries from about January or February of the election year to select their candidate for President. There could be several contenders for the post from each party.
The primaries are held in each state and the candidate who wins the largest number of delegates in the party’s primary becomes the party’s candidate for President. Each party has a convention around July or August to officially announce their candidate. The general elections are held on the first Tuesday in November. So, the US election process lasts nearly 9 or 10 months. This is quite unlike the Indian system where the members of the Lok Sabha elect the Prime Minister after the elections are completed.
In the US, the party in majority in the House of Representatives may be different from the party in majority in the Senate, and from the political affiliation of the President. This is unlike the Indian Parliament, where the Prime Minister is elected by the majority in the Lok Sabha.
A second major departure between the two countries is the electoral college system used in the US. Although people vote for one of the candidates for President, the actual election of the President takes place through a system of 538 electors who are chosen before the general election by their respective political party. The electors are prominent people in each state and cast the actual votes for the President in mid-December, a little over a month after the election in November. After the Electoral College vote, the results are sent to Congress.
On January 6th, a joint session of Congress, presided over by the Vice President, formally counts the electoral votes. Congress certifies the winner based on this count. The incoming President is sworn in on January 20, about 2 and a half months after the election. This is unlike the Indian election, where the incoming Parliament is sworn in immediately after the election results are announced.
One final difference in the two systems of elections is that in India elections are a national event with a central Election Commission. In the US, although the election is on a national level, but it is run by each individual state. Each state can have its own rules regarding how the elections are conducted, including whether ballots can be mailed, whether people can vote early, what are the timings for casting the ballots, whether electronic voting machines are used, etc.
Approximately half the people who vote in the US, vote early either in person, or by mail. The remaining vote in person on election day. There are approximately 160 million people who participate in the US elections. It is possible to conduct the election smoothly on a single day because the voting process is managed at the local county level. In India the Lok Sabha polls take several weeks in several phases. Although the total number of voters in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections was around 640 million, but that does not justify the length of time required to conduct the election.
The centralized system of election management in India is largely responsible for this extended election duration. Contributing to this is likely the lack of strong local governance systems which can instil confidence among the people as well as the desire of the central government to retain control over the election process.
Countries can, and do, have their own systems for elections. This article highlighted the major differences between the system of conducting elections in India and the US. No one knows which system is better. There are critics of each system and there has been an ongoing debate whether India would be better served with a system like the Presidential system of the US. It is felt by this author that instead of aping the systems in other countries, India needs evolve its system based on the voice of the people. Because ultimately, in a democracy, the will of the people is what matters. — INFA