Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Voter ID Laws in American States

February 15, 2016 11:37 PM - Season 3, Episode 1

Last Week Tonight S03E01 Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dies at age 79. Chipotle restaurants face federal investigations over food safety. (LWT produced a small commercial for them.) Main story: Voting (YouTube 14m), and the increased obstacles put in place to make it harder for US citizens to vote in elections. And Now: Newscasters Using Entirely The Wrong Tone. New Zealand's Prime Minister Steven Joyce is smacked in the head by a thrown phallus and is thereafter nicknamed by the New Zealand Herald "Dildo Baggins." Joyce tweeted to send it the GIF to John Oliver to get it over with -- and so they put the image on a flag, and gave the flag to Peter Jackson to wave. And then things got weird.... Yes that's right: Last Week Tonight is back!

"Chipotle: What are ya gonna do, go to Taco Bell?"

"New Zealand: Australia's Chia Pet"

posted by JHarris (22 comments total)

Erm, Steven Joyce isn't the PM here (but he'd be a lot better than the current one) and he does have net savvy and a sense of humour. Not quite sure what he does, but some call him The Fixer.
posted by arzakh at 3:23 AM on February 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm just going to say this, pressing absent voters buttons was hilarious.
posted by lmfsilva at 8:54 AM on February 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hilariously sad. I feel like that segment should be broadcast in schools. Or at least shared widely on the nightly news.
posted by cashman at 9:01 AM on February 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Someone noted that when the Voter ID law got struck down in Pennsylvania, Republicans responded by doubling the price of IDs.
posted by cashman at 11:47 AM on February 16, 2016

When listening to this, I am, like I think most, somewhat blown away by the flagrant use of voter-ID laws to disenfranchise individuals, but admit my first inclination is that we need to make the IDs easier to procure - - produce them, for everybody, at a lower (or preferably, for the initial issuance, no) cost (yes, that means government subsidy), and make them ubiquitous.


... then again, I'll also admit that the biggest change I want to see at a polling place are poll tests (no, not those used to blatantly disenfranchise blacks in the South or the like).

Basically, I figure that if you can't place many/most of the candidates' views on widely debated issues within a margin of error on a spectrum (e.g. "does Candidate Trump support the full opening of US borders to refugees from the Middle East?" "Yes----------indifferent----------no") and come close... I'll admit I don't really have a lot of faith that you're making an informed decision.

... yes, pragmatically, implementation would be difficult. ... but I figure that the goal should be to have an participatory electorate that makes as informed a decision as is possible with publicly available information.
posted by Seeba at 1:44 PM on February 16, 2016

I feel like that segment should be broadcast in schools.

Someone should do a montage on assholes talking about voter fraud while they press other people's buttons, all over soothing music, and play that as ads when more vote-restricting laws are enacted.
posted by lmfsilva at 1:45 PM on February 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm just going to say this, pressing absent voters buttons was hilarious.

How is that possibly legal?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 1:16 AM on February 17, 2016

I was wondering the same myself.
"Perhaps Americans could consider 'pairing'", I thought, towards the start of the segment.

By the end... I was all "democracy!".

I was, however, not a fan of the #dildoshaming.
As hilarious as it was.
The man was smacked in the face with a flying dildo. Give him some dignity.
posted by Mezentian at 1:30 AM on February 17, 2016

I'm just going to say this, pressing absent voters buttons was hilarious.

How is that possibly legal?

I bet it's one of those things that's not illegal, so it's kind of legal. Legislatures routinely exempt themselves from various laws.
posted by Etrigan at 7:01 AM on February 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

The man was smacked in the face with a flying dildo. Give him some dignity.

He literally asked for Oliver to make fun of him. Literally literally.
posted by Etrigan at 7:01 AM on February 17, 2016 [4 favorites]

there may be no state laws explicitly prohibiting it

This is how we end up with a dog as a member of congress.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 7:22 AM on February 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

Technically, Section 2 Clause 2: No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

A dog would have to make it to twenty-five human years.

Ah, but the clause specifically says that no person shall be a Representative without fulfilling those conditions. It doesn't state any conditions for a dog to be a Representative, nor does Clause 1:

The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states, and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature.

posted by Etrigan at 8:07 AM on February 17, 2016 [5 favorites]

If we've learned anything at all from John Oliver, it's that dogs can serve on the Supreme Court. So why not Congress? Let's end dog persecution.
posted by triggerfinger at 2:16 PM on February 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

there may be no state laws explicitly prohibiting it

This is how we end up with a dog as a member of congress.

Judging by the number of horse's asses in congress, there's already precedent for animal representatives.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:07 PM on February 17, 2016

(Are people actually taking the dog question seriously? I thought it was obvious that this was -- spoilers! -- a reference to all those movies where some animal plays for a sports team, because, after a referee flips through a rulebook, he shrugs and says "There's no rule against it!")
posted by JHarris at 6:48 PM on February 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

In Texas, then (and again: not a lawyer), the legislature has decided that it's expedient to let people physically press your voting buttons, but only if given permission, and only if you stay fairly close by the floor (ie, not physically absent from the building).


I feel like if there was permission granted or some kind of understanding then the lawmaker lady would have said that when she was grilled in it. I'm surprised she didn't just say that anyways. It would be my first line of defense.
posted by LizBoBiz at 6:56 PM on February 17, 2016

I feel like if there was permission granted or some kind of understanding then the lawmaker lady would have said that when she was grilled in it. I'm surprised she didn't just say that anyways. It would be my first line of defense.

But surely if permission had not been granted, the lawmakers whose votes were usurped would mount some kind of objection, given the video evidence. It seems like it's not actually vote stealing, but customs within various legislatures about how votes can be handled if people have to be away from their desks. Like pairing in the Australian Federal Parliament.
posted by misfish at 8:20 PM on February 17, 2016

But surely if permission had not been granted, the lawmakers whose votes were usurped would mount some kind of objection, given the video evidence.

Here is an example of ghost voting where no permission was given. Although that seems like it was a democrat voting for an absent democrat (in violation of the rules).

I found one example of one side stealing another side's vote from 2005 - Carol Migden - but it seems to be mostly by arrangement with member's of one's own party.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:07 PM on February 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

(Are people actually taking the dog question seriously? I thought it was obvious that this was -- spoilers! -- a reference to all those movies where some animal plays for a sports team, because, after a referee flips through a rulebook, he shrugs and says "There's no rule against it!")

Air Bud: Barker of the House
posted by Etrigan at 6:35 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

I think the point of Last Week Tonight's footage of ghost voting is that, in state legislatures, despite whatever the speaker says and any nods to Robert's Rules of Order, voting procedures are remarkably casual despite the stakes involved and that voting is their job, yet these same people who cheerfully vote on behalf of their fellows and don't think anything of it claim that strict security is needed at public polls, in order to push voter ID laws that suppress part of the vote that is against their interests.

Yes, it's 2016, and voter suppression is yet alive and well in the United States. That should be the headline on the news across the country.
posted by JHarris at 4:09 PM on February 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

I was really hoping that these chumps would just give up on vote suppression laws after Colorado elected Cory Gardner to the Senate with the most accessible voting process (mail-in ballots delivered to every registered voter!) of any state. Like, you don't even seem to need it to get your horrible reactionary candidates in! Quit trying to cheat!

But no, vote suppression is still a thing, and Cory Gardner is still a Senator. Dagnabbit.
posted by asperity at 7:13 PM on February 23, 2016

My viewing experience of this episode was enriched by what happened when they put up a two second video shot of a dozen or so mice running about during the Chipotle segment. I was watching the episode in bed with my laptop before me and my cat asleep (or so I thought) on the extra pillows beside me. As it happened, Trilby wasn't actually asleep, and when he saw those mice he hurled himself at my laptop screen. Quick as he was, the mice had disappeared before he got there, and then Trilby spent three or four minutes looking all around and behind the laptop, trying to figure out where the mice had gone.

I love John Oliver, but I'm pretty sure Trilby would describe him as a manipulative bastard.
posted by orange swan at 10:14 AM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]