This is a guest post by a team of students in Harvard Law School’s Election Law Clinic:

Election administration is a marriage of rules, laws, and norms that together create a system to elect a candidate. When reviewing an election system, one must do so by looking at each part in the context of their sum. The Trump Executive Order titled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections” is a power grab that presents a boldface restriction on voting rights, and it risks, among other things, disenfranchising qualified voters. To support his claims, President Trump cherry-picked certain election administration practices in six different countries: India, Brazil, Germany, Canada, Denmark, and Sweden, which this Administration believes are more secure than the United States.   

Our aim is not to evaluate the comparative practices that President Trump’s EO highlights, rather, we give the election administration of these countries a fair assessment. When viewed in their totality, all six of the countries highlighted are successfully implementing pro-voting practices that increase access to the ballot. Notably, some of the countries showcased by the order conduct practices directly in opposition to other practices the EO highlights. Take, for example, India and Brazil. Both are praised by the EO for their use of biometric data for citizenship verification but also use almost entirely electronic voting methods, a practice Mr. Trump discredits a few lines later in the EO. Indeed, the order calls for voting methods that produce a voter-verifiable paper record.  

The EO calls out the practice of “tying voter identification to a biometric database” in India and Brazil rather than “self-attestation for citizenship,” which is used on the United States. This is one feature of the election systems in India and Brazil, two of the world’s largest democracies. India’s elections, the largest in the world, are overseen by a powerful independent election commission. In the last few weeks, President Trump has indicated his desire for the opposite – control over the Federal Election Commission. He has exercised that control by firing one member of the Commission and requiring the Commission to run all new policies, rulings, and regulations by him. As indicated, this EO states the President’s aspiration for paper ballot elections. Yet, India’s elections are conducted nearly entirely electronically on the country’s nearly two million voting machines. India has taken additional measures to ensure access to the ballot – including a law requiring that citizens need not travel more than 2km to vote. To meet these demands, civil servants from around the country leave their day jobs to conduct the election in every corner of the country, even if it means hiking into rural communities. Similarly, in Brazil, elections are conducted entirely electronically. Across the country the same numeric keypad system with a screen is used to vote.  

President Trump’s EO praises Canada and Germany for requiring “paper ballots, counted in public by local officials…” The EO says that the use of paper ballots “reduces the number of disputes as compared to the American patchwork of voting methods.” While Canada does use paper ballots in federal elections, ballot counting occurs behind the locked doors of polling stations, though candidates, their representatives, or other designated observers may be permitted to watch the counts. Still, electronic voting is not completely absent from elections in Canada, since some municipal, territorial, and provincial elections can involve casting a digital ballot. Germany does not currently use electronic in general elections, but recently, Germany has begun to experiment with online voting for certain elections. Furthermore, both Germany and Canada permit mail-in voting, a practice President Trump has sometimes criticized, but studies have found may increase turnout among eligible voters. In Germany, eligible absentee voters can scan a QR code on their smartphones to receive an absentee ballot in the mail.  

On the subject of mail-in voting, President Trump’s EO also commends Denmark and Sweden for limiting the practice to “those unable to vote in person” and “not count[ing] late-arriving votes regardless of the date of postmark,” in contrast to American elections in which officials accept “ballots without postmarks or those received well after Election Day.” In Denmark, advance voting is limited to those unable to appear at the polls during voting hours, advance votes require a special ballot with a separate envelope and cover letter, and any such votes received after voting starts “shall not be considered.” While true that Sweden and Demark do not accept ballots after the election, like the majority of states in the U.S., the ID requirements in these countries may be less stringent than what President Trump has called for. Despite the emphasis placed on documentary proof of citizenship in the EO, presenting identification is not a per se requirement at the polls in Denmark. Sweden also limits mail-in voting to cases in which the voter is abroad, and postal votes must arrive in time for the vote count. Yet presenting identification is not a per se requirement at the polls in Sweden, either. In fact, if there is a question about a voter’s identity, another voter can vouch for him. Furthermore, Swedish elections reserve an option for voting by courier, and some municipal and regional assembly elections even permit those without Swedish citizenship to cast votes. 

One lesson is clear: if Mr. Trump wants to borrow election practices from other countries, he should look at the full picture.