President Donald Trump attacked U.S. vote counting overnight, pointing to a speedy same-day count in a Sunday presidential election in India involving 125 million voters. There was just one problem: India held no presidential election that day.
"125 Million People voted today in the first round of India's Presidential Election,” Trump wrote. “The results came out shortly after the vote closed, on the SAME DAY! In Detroit, Philadelphia, California, and numerous other U.S. Cities and States, the results, with much smaller numbers, will often take weeks to Rig, I mean, calculate. Voting in America is CORRUPT!!!"
The Indian president’s term ends in 2027, meaning prospective voters in India will actually be waiting months for the results.
An electoral college of members of Parliament and state lawmakers picks India's president. There is no "first round."
The post appears to describe Brazil's presidential election: Brazil held a first round that day, and roughly 125 million people voted. With 99.99% counted, Flávio Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, had 47.03% and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had 45.16%. The two now face an Oct. 25 runoff.
The 21.08% abstention rate, or 33.4 million voters, was the highest since 1998.
Trump later deleted the post and reposted it with the correct country.
The fast count he praised is produced by electronic voting machines, the kind of election equipment Trump has vowed to scrap in U.S. elections.
Brazilians vote on electronic machines. The country adopted them after ballot boxes were stuffed or stolen and votes were falsified in earlier elections, and results now come in "mere hours after polls close," The Associated Press reported. No significant fraud has been found since Brazil switched to electronic voting in the 1990s, CBS News reported.
Counting starts when polling places close, and voters can follow it live on the electoral court's website, according to AP.
U.S. counts are slower largely because of state election law. Pennsylvania can't open mail ballots before 7 a.m. on Election Day. California mails every active registered voter a ballot, and counts ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive up to seven days later. Provisional ballots are counted later, after officials confirm the voter "did not cast a second ballot elsewhere."
In August 2025, Trump said he would "lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we're at it, Highly 'Inaccurate,' Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES." He said watermark paper was "faster" and promised an executive order for the 2026 midterms. Twelve days later he posted: "USE PAPER BALLOTS ONLY!!!"