Elon Musk praises India’s electoral system, slams slow counting in US

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has praised India’s electoral process, comparing it to the counting of votes in the United States as California is still yet to declare the polling results of the presidential elections.

In a post on X, the billionaire applauded India for counting 640 votes in just a day, sharing a headline of a news article titled, “How India Counted 640 Million Votes in a Day”.

“India counted 640 million votes in 1 day,” Must wrote in the X post. “California is still counting votes.”

On June 4, 2024, India completed its massive vote counting for the Lok Sabha elections. The country has over 900 million eligible voters, making it the largest electorate in the world. A world record was set when 642 million voters cast their ballot and the results were delivered within hours when the voting began. 

Musk’s post highlighted his disappointment in the US electoral process, which has led to a delay of results in California for the voting that took place 18 days ago.

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The delay in California's results

On November 5, 2024, the US voted to elect their next president. While it is clear that Donald Trump has secured his second term in office, the counting for votes in the most populous US state is still not complete. 

The state has a population of over 39 million, with over 22 million registered voters. In the 2024 US presidential elections, the state had a turnout of around 16 million votes. According to the Los Angeles Times, over half a million ballots are still left to be counted in the state.

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The state is notoriously known for its staggering electoral system for several years. This is due to the higher percentage of people voting through mail-in in the state when compared to other states in the US. While the in-person voting is quicker to verify and count, the mail-in ballot has an elaborate process of validating the votes which leads to delays in the counting. As per law, the state county elections officials have 30 days for counting and conducting an audit after the voting takes place.

Despite the significant delays, the state holds a key share of electoral votes for deciding the outcome of the elections.

(With inputs from agencies)