USAID Proved Democrats Support Secure Elections for Everyone But Americans
The international aid agency promoted voter ID abroad while its supporters fought it at home.
It's the biggest irony you've heard nothing about.
For years, Democrats have opposed strict voter ID in the United States—even as they quietly supported it overseas through the now-defunct United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other taxpayer funded organizations aimed at exporting democracy.
As a result, the U.S. has fallen behind many of those countries on election integrity. If Americans are to ever enjoy elections as transparent as some of the poorest countries in Africa and Asia, Republicans must use their majority in the U.S. Senate to overcome Democrats' hypocrisy on this issue by passing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE America Act).
USAID was no more a bipartisan entity, administered by nonpartisan technocrats, than foreign aid is a bipartisan issue.
A February 2025 YouGov survey found that 75 percent of Democrats support foreign aid, while 62 percent of Republicans oppose it.
When the Trump administration defunded and then shuttered USAID last year for exporting leftist ideologies with U.S. tax dollars, liberals framed it as an attack on American values and a threat to national security.
This makes Democrats' opposition to voter ID in the U.S. even more egregious—and indefensible. For years, USAID promoted sound electoral policies that both secured and boosted confidence in elections in developing countries.
Republicans have tried repeatedly to enact similar policies, at the federal level, in the U.S. Yet Congressional Democrats refuse to consider them despite the popularity of voter ID requirements with most of their own voters.
USAID Got This One Right
USAID promoted strict voter verification methods through its audits, reports, and evaluations. It also directly funded programs that implemented biometric data and government-issued photo ID requirements to eliminate double voting and ballot stuffing in fragile democracies.
A USAID Office of Inspector General review of the agency's electoral assistance programs in Afghanistan specifically flagged missing photographs on voter registration cards as a fraud vulnerability. It identified their absence as an opening for voters to obtain multiple cards, which drove down voter confidence and subsequent participation.
That principle has been applied consistently across other USAID-supported programs.
In Mauritania, USAID praised the country's electoral system, which required in-person registration, a national voter ID card, and biometric data submission at the polls.
In 2017, Malawi—where 70 percent of the population lacked electricity—was one of the only countries in southern Africa without national voter ID. To address this gap, USAID and U.S. allies funded the country's $52 million National Registration and Identification Systems Project, which established a comprehensive biometric ID system. This integrated directly with Malawi's electoral infrastructure, linking each voter's photograph and biometric data to their record on the national roll.
This made voter impersonation detectable by creating transparent, scannable voter lists that election observers could audit in real time. USAID assessed that the project created nearly universal adult coverage in a short period and improved public confidence in electoral outcomes.
Democratic Hypocrisy Runs Deeper Than Supporting USAID
Other agencies that received funding from USAID also promoted electoral policies Democrats oppose in the U.S.
The National Democratic Institute (NDI) is the Democratic Party's own USAID-funded international democracy arm, whose board includes Stacey Abrams and former CNN commentator Donna Brazile. Like USAID, it has advised developing countries that voter ID is essential to credible elections, recommending biometric verification systems that go further than anything Republicans have supported in the U.S.
After losing the Georgia gubernatorial election in 2018, however, Abrams launched an entire advocacy organization to oppose voter ID laws. She even called Georgia's law "Jim Crow in a suit and tie."
Yet in 2023, she accompanied an NDI election observation mission to Nigeria, whose official report declared that biometric voter ID was "the most important contribution to raising confidence in electoral integrity."
Another agency that received substantial USAID funding for democracy promotion is the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). It too has consistently advocated for biometric voter verification standards at the polls. This included checking biometric data or national documents with photo ID against national voter lists.
The Developing World is Leaving the U.S. Behind on Election Integrity
A 2025 international election rules comparison of 37 countries from the Meyers Report ranked the U.S. dead last, with a score of 60 out of 100. Here's why.
Requiring biometric data or a government-issued photo ID to vote has become the global norm, as it leaves little room for error and allows election results to be accepted by genuine losers and claimed by legitimate winners.
A study on voter ID laws published in the peer-reviewed academic journal Representation found that at least 176 national and regional governments demand biometric or photo ID to cast a ballot.
The U.S. is not among them.
Many countries American taxpayers helped develop democratically are leaving the U.S. in the dust on this issue. As early as 2015, at least 25 African countries had incorporated an electronic component into their electoral systems, with most using biometric voter registration that tied a photograph or fingerprint to each voter's record. The U.S. provided critical financial and technical support for many of these transitions through USAID, IFES, and NDI.
It doesn't have to be this way.
Many individual states have passed citizenship verification and strict voter ID requirements, but the U.S. remains a global outlier, thanks to Democrats persistently blocking Republican efforts to nationalize the very standards they promote abroad.
Arguments Against Making Voter ID Nationwide Fall Flat
Democrats and liberal organizations largely ignore the hypocrisy of supporting strict voter ID abroad while opposing it at home.
Instead, they misrepresent Republican proposals and their impact on voters.
- They often mischaracterize Republican proposals as requiring proof of citizenship like a birth certificate every time a voter casts a ballot to make them sound unduly onerous. But Republican bills like the SAVE America Act only require proof of citizenship during registration. A government-issued photo ID suffices to cast a ballot.
- Another claim is that proof of citizenship would make it difficult for married women to vote because their birth certificates no longer carry their last names—as if that isn't a "barrier" married women already overcome every time they move to a different state.
- They also paint obtaining a government-issued ID as an undue burden on the poor who lack driver's licenses or passports. But if countries where over half the population lacks electricity can accomplish this, the U.S. can as well.
Other large countries have smoothly adopted voter ID requirements similar to what Republicans propose without the chaos or disenfranchisement over which Democrats fearmonger.
India—the world's largest democracy, with nearly 970 million eligible voters—distributes the Elector's Photo Identity Card free of charge through its Election Commission of India in both physical and digital formats.
Mexico issues every citizen over 18 a free Voter Credential card through the National Electoral Institute. The card contains a photograph, fingerprint biometrics, and three QR codes containing the holder's biographical and facial data. Regarded as the most reliable form of personal identification in the world, it is accepted for banking, government services, and travel. The conservative Heritage Foundation has praised it as a model system that secures elections and does not suppress turnout—the main reason liberals cite for their opposition to implementing something similar in the U.S.
Trailing behind countries whose electoral systems American taxpayers helped improve is a choice—and a completely unacceptable one. For years, Democrats supported securing elections abroad while blocking the very same standards at home. Whether they secretly want electoral fraud to be easier, or because activist groups like the League of Women Voters hold an unbreakable grip on them, their hypocrisy has left the U.S. as a global outlier on election integrity. We cannot wait for them to stop being hypocrites.
Senate Republicans must force election integrity legislation to Trump's desk while they still hold a slim majority if we hope to nationalize citizenship verification and a photo ID requirement to vote.
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