Voting: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

we are finally in an election year so for our main story tonight let's look at voting the cornerstone of American democracy the unshakable principle that everyone should have an equal vote even idiots even this guy now I know it's painful but his votes should count as much as yours it should count as much as the presidents that's what America is all about now in recent years some states have made voting easier for instance three states now hold their elections almost entirely by mail and 30 states plus DC now let you register to vote online sadly others have gone in the opposite direction because depending on who you are and where you live you may face new obstacles to voting this November thanks to among other things the Supreme Court's decision to weaken the Voting Rights Acts for instance since 2011 seven states have curtailed early voting and 13 have added requirements the voters show some kind of ID at the polls and the lawmakers pushing those voter ID laws claimed they are just simple common-sense measures it is common sense that you would use picture ID to protect the integrity of the voting process it's an ID everyone has an ID the people that are homeless the people that go to vote they get sick they go to the hospital they buy they buy stuff they need ID I'm proud that North Carolina has joined the 34 other states to enact a common-sense voter ID law that that isn't going to impact a significant amount of North Carolinians oh it's not going to impact a significant number of North Carolinians well that's fine although by that standard you could also say we're going to incinerate everyone named Warren that's that's not a significant number of people but you are gonna have a pretty justifiably upset Warren Beatty on your hands that lore is significant to him because not everyone actually does have ID in Texas alone at least half a million registered voters do not have the form of ID necessary to vote North Carolina and Wisconsin have roughly three hundred thousand voters a piece with neither a driver's license nor a state ID and in Virginia an estimated two hundred thousand voters may not have one and if you think about it you probably know at least one person who doesn't have an ID whether it's your grandma who had her license taken away you'll recluse uncle who rollerblades everywhere or your cousin who lost his license after his third DUI come on Jase you can't fool a breathalyzer by whispering the word sober into it and even if you try to obtain an ID just in order to vote it can be difficult this thought a Pennsylvania woman went through when her state's ID law was in effect 68 year old Doris Clarke was turned down three times applying for her Pennsylvania voter ID card and every time she says the state wanted another document original birth certificate original Social Security card then she needed her husband's death certificate when a clerk demanded proof of her married name you feel like why am I going through all these things I'm not being man's wife bin Laden's wife is a strange way to frame it why not say Osama bin Laden was a Moll al saud Osmond or see hamsa bars husband or career Sabah's husband hashtag Osama bin Laden hashtag feminism yes and yet none of these difficulties seem to trouble legislators like Wisconsin's Joel Kleefisch who argued for a strict ID law by pointing out his state's photo ID requirement to buy sudafed I find it frustrating that so many of the same people who today are telling us that a photo ID is just - gosh darn much to maintain the integrity of the ballot and those same people two sessions ago made sure those same people many of the same people in this room made sure two sessions ago that you had to have a photo ID to buy stuffy nose medicine okay okay a couple of things there first that bill was designed to help curtail Wisconsin's meth problem and second voting is a right if you take it away you ruin democracy if you take away someone's sudafed the only thing you'll ruin is their sleeve and in some parts of the country the offices that issue IDs are hardly ever open in 2012 a study found that in Wisconsin Alabama and Mississippi fewer than half of all ID issuing offices in the state are open five days a week and in Sauk City Wisconsin just a few districts over from where that business casual Kevin Smith lives the ID office is only open on the fifth Wednesday of every month and only four months in 2016 even have five Wednesday's but don't worry there's a rhyme March June August November have five Wednesday's but remember if you come on days not those you sell second close in Wisconsin let's talk back there if you also mentioned that studies have shown these restrictions tend to disproportionately impact African American and Latino voters in Texas for instance experts found that African American voters were nearly twice as likely to lack voter ID and Latinos were nearly two and a half times as likely it is one of those things that white people seem to be more likely to have like a sunburn or an Oscar nomination so what what are we doing this well if you listen to the legislators who help pass these laws they'll say that they are necessary to prevent fraud here is a co-sponsor of Texas's voter ID law debbie riddle the very freedom of our nation is based on the integrity of our ballot box and if things are so much that that fraudulent voting can can occur that means your phone can be stolen and simply showing an identification it's not too much to ask are you sure about that though don't eat fish on the subway is not too much to ask never start a facebook status with that moment when there is not too much to us requiring ID can actually be asking a lot and and as for fraudulent elections well let's look at that for a moment because while American history is littered with vote buying vote tampering and ballot box stuffing voter ID doesn't prevent those crimes the only crime it prevents is voter impersonation one person showing up to the polls pretending to be someone they're not which is a pretty stupid crime because you have to stand in line at a polling place and risk five years in prison and a ten thousand dollar fine all to cast one probably not consequential extra vote in terms of pointless crimes is right up there with forging a Bed Bath & Beyond Cooper - lot of troubled with low reward yet people insist that this happens a lot without photo ID what do you fear could happen well without photo ID I mean let's be clear I don't want dead people voting in the state of South Carolina I've said that from the very beginning and authorities say there is evidence that dead people voting is a real problem according to a statewide investigation by South Carolina's Department of Motor Vehicles in January it found that 953 ballots were cast by voters who were deceased now that's true the DMV did say that and the study calls such a stir that one lawmaker stated we must have certainty in South Carolina that zombies aren't voting and look he's right he's right no one wants that except possibly for upstart candidate Philip rose but but when the state's law Enforcement Division investigated the DMV's claims it found no real basis for them in fact of the prior elections 207 suspicious ballots 92 of them were cases where someone had the same name as a deceased boat so usually a father and son 56 of them were cases where the Social Security number of a living voter was mistakenly matched with a dead person 32 was simply scanner errors one person requested an absentee ballots completed it and then died while it was in the mail and and most of the others were an array of random clerical errors altogether the investigation found five balance that could not be accounted for this is an election where more than 1.3 million votes were cast these voter ID laws are the biggest overreaction to a manageable problem since Sleeping Beauty's father ordered all the spinning wheels in the lands to be burnt this is the Korean economy we need those wheels what do you just watch your daughter for literally one day in her keep life voter impersonation fraud is incredibly rare one researcher who tracked it closely found that from 2000 to 2014 there were 31 possible incidents in the entire country out of over a billion ballots cast voter voter fraud is a problem the way that deadly knife play from crabs is a problem I'm not saying it doesn't exist there are cases where it has happened but let's not overreact to one stabby crab these laws do actually tend to make a little more sense whenever you see someone slip up and suggest other reasons for why they may support them voter ID which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania done do you think all the attention drawn to voter ID effective last year's elections yeah I think a little bit I think we probably had a better election think about this week I know about 5% which was big a lot of people are cited that he he won he beat McCain by 10 percent he beat Romney by 5 percent I think that probably photo ID had a helped a bit in that you know you're saying the thing that everyone knows but you're not supposed to say out loud that's like writing I'm desperate to bone on an online dating profile or a band calling that reunion tour we ran out of money but perhaps the most galling thing here is that there there are actual cases of voter impersonation caught on camera and you will never believe where they happen this is state representative Debbie riddle she authored the bill that would require voters to show a photo ID clerk brain develops a record vote it's all about integrity record vote but the integrity of one person one vote doesn't apply at the legislature we found many lawmakers vote more than once take a look little votes turns around votes again for state Rep temple rewind and watch the men on the screen Elkins goes to vote for merit but Hancock is faster Elkins heads back to his desk but before he can vote Joe Crabb turns around and beats him to it holy literally competing to press other people's voting buttons and remember this is Texas which has the strictest ID laws in the country and apparently this process is called ghost voting and it happens in state legislatures all over the country and sometimes they involve literal ghost votes one lawmaker in Texas died and was it recorded voting three times later that day which is clearly ridiculous a real ghost wouldn't waste its time voting on bills it will be out terrorizing a young family in their new house or trying desperately to bang Demi Moore on a pottery wheel one last time and and debbie riddle is not the only voter ID proponent who has done this remember Wisconsin's Joel Kleefisch I mean there is there is no way that he got caught doing it right a cell phone video posted online shows clay fish placing a vote for an absent Assemblymember clay fish says the online video is an attempt at character assassination no no no that's not character assassination it's unedited footage of something you obviously did if anything that is character auto-erotic asphyxiation and norma lawmakers in tennessee are so shameless about this they've got the whole thing down to a fine art it's such a common practice in the house in fact that many lawmakers have sticks they use to reach each other's voting buttons look if you are going to pervert democracy could you at least do it with a less creepy stick what an evil leprechaun would used to beat a child and yet whatever legislators like debbie riddle i asked about this actual voter impersonation they say they've done nothing wrong and only acting out of necessity we have a lot of votes we have a lot of amendments and there's times when we don't break for lunch and we don't break for dinner we don't have bathroom breaks okay well quick suggestion have you consider getting some extra long voting sticks they tend to help you know what at this point I would like to propose something any politician who has ever supported an unnecessary voter ID law should be forced to obtain a new ID every single time they want to pass a bill just to make sure they are who they say they are and yes they might say well John that's ridiculous there is no real reason to make us do that and it's so cumbersome it could prevent us from engaging in the democratic process to which I would say welcome to the Club [Applause]

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 10,147,246

Rating: 4.676208 out of 5

Keywords: last week tonight, john oliver, voting, hbo, last week tonight with john oliver

Id: rHFOwlMCdto

Length: 14min 8sec (848 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 14 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Kersplit]

Think about the state reps who advocate for voter ID laws and then illegally vote for their colleagues: Every time they press another representatives vote button they are effectively voting for hundreds or even thousands of people fraudulently.

Honestly, if their state calls for 5 years in jail for voter fraud, they should be charged with 5 years Multiplied by the number of constituents in the district they fraudulently voted for.

[u/HipHomelessHomie]

Ok serious question:

How do you make sure people don't double-vote without requiring ID?

[u/Is_Meta]

Ok, while it is ridiculous what he showed and how it affects specific population groups, my main problem and imo the root problem of it in general is this: Why are there people without ID?

So, in Germany, it is illegal not to have a valid ID. You don't have to take it everywhere but you generally should have one. There are many occasions where you actually cannot do something without ID (bank account opening; buying a house; renting a flat; anything official in general like marrying or register your newborn; technically if you want to buy alcohol or get into a club although if you look old enough you can get by without; if you want to fetch parcels from somewhere, sometimes even if they bring them to you; sometimes you have to prove your identity when you use credit cards).

If you have to identify yourself to the police and cannot identify yourself, you may have to pay up to 5000Euros. Non-Germans usually have to own a passport (except from EU member states where any ID is eligable) while being in Germany. But after reading the Wikipedia article, I am not sure if Germany is a special case?

So for us, having ID to vote just seems pretty normal. I have to vote for state elections in a few weeks and it is usually a matter of 15min (which includes walking to the voting centre). To bring your ID is something pretty normal, because we use it so often for everything else.

I mean, how is having an ID an issue in a country where everything else (phone, mail, bank accs, streets, metro stations etc) is surveiled by some entity?

[u/Null_Reference_]

So... surely the real problem is the difficulty in getting the ID's then, right?

Like yeah it's absurd that it was so difficult for that lady to get ID and that the places that give them out are so often closed. So why not fix that. Because voting is certainly not the only situation in which you'd need an ID and be frustrated by the difficulty of getting one.

[u/DudleyDoody]

He may be occasionally repetitive, but thank god this glorious bastard is back.

[u/Bannakaffalatta1]

ITT: A bunch of European people not understanding that it's more difficult to get an ID and also register to vote in the US than it is in most European countries.

[u/Steph1er]

Wait no ID? Isn't an identity card a thing in america? what's wrong with you people

[u/DPC128]

He returns! Praise be! Praise be!!

[u/gatorfan45]

Holy shit I had no idea that people do that when voting for laws. That shit is ridiculous.