Voting by Mail: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

For our top story

tonight

, I'd like to talk about how the president spent the first half of his

week

because, for some reason, in the midst of 40 million unemployed Americans, 100,000 dead Americans, and simmering racial tensions, he decided to spend his days . focusing on this president, Trump overnight took to Twitter to take on Twitter along with other social media giants for what he calls political bias, this comes after Twitter first added a footnote fact-checking page on two of his tweets that substantially called out

mail

-in ballots. fraudulent, yes Twitter verified the president's tweets, apparently they are also verifying other tweets, but clearly not all because we just tweeted that Luke is the best Hemsworth and so far that has not been flagged as a harmful lie and see. on twitter or their system works or not it is a known fact that the order is chris hemsworth liam hemsworth not hemsworths so luke but it is worth taking a look at the underlying statement that caused twitter to act on trump's claim that

voting

by

mail

in this year's elections will be substantially fraudulent because it is one of their favorite issues.

He's tweeted about it a ridiculous amount of times in the

last

two months and mentions it constantly. Mail-in ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country because they are cheaters. they go and collect them they are fraudulent in many cases the mail-in ballots are corrupt in my opinion and they collect them and make people come in and sign them and then they are forgeries in many cases it is something horrible and now what he just said there was total damage and active to the democratic process, but in a strange way, it's almost comforting to hear him belt out his classic 2016 hits about voter fraud and rigged elections.

It takes you back to a simpler time, doesn't it? we could go to restaurants freely we had no idea what zoom was and we were sure that an obviously unqualified presidential candidate was going to lose in the historic landslide oh 2016, you really were the old man only less horrible in the context days and the thing is to vote by The mail is a popular idea. 70 of us are in favor of allowing any voter to vote by mail if they choose, and if this pandemic continues into the fall, as it surely will, many voters will want to do exactly that because they think about it. in-person elections during a pandemic are an absolute nightmare.

Elections usually involve hundreds of people cycling in and out of a single indoor location, plus polling places are often located in communal buildings like schools and nursing homes, and many of them are out of the question, right? Now even keeping poll workers safe can be difficult because, by one estimate, while the typical voter may encounter only 20 other people when they go to the polls, the typical poll worker will encounter about 700 and many are understandably worried about that. I would say this in my day, but this really scares me. This kind of thing I never thought I'd see in the case of McGee and most poll workers are retired in their 60s and 70s and health experts say this age group is among some of the most vulnerable to the virus, even if we have a line of 10 people, how are we going to keep everyone we know safe from germs?

We have a touch screen, we will have to clean it every time we are supposed to have it. People bring their own pencil, no, of course not, and not just because they shouldn't have to, but also who the hell owns a fully functioning pencil? I mean, sure you can have one with a usable eraser but an unusable tip or maybe you have one with a sharp tip but the eraser is gone or maybe you have one with a working tip but the stroke is hard and leaves like a brown streak on the paper and yes, you can sharpen any of these pencils, but what pencil sharpener can't you?

You don't have one of those or unless you do, in which case ask me where it is exactly if you think you're in any way prepared to carry a functional pencil to a polling station and you, my friend, are living in a fantasy world. Now that woman has decided not to run in her state's primary out of fear for her safety, and many voters share her concerns, but not all state officials are addressing those concerns especially well — just listen to Missouri Gov. Mike Parson offer advice before of next

week

's local elections there. You know, I hope that people feel safe, but that they go out and vote, but if they don't know, the first thing is that their safety has to be number one, so if they don't, then don't go out and vote, you know?

You know, I don't know like I've ever heard myself say that, but you know, if you didn't feel safe, then I wouldn't do it. Wait,

voting

is a right, it has to be easy to understand and accessible to everyone, unlike, say, hbo max, what is it? By the way, does anyone really know how I do it? I'm in it and I don't know and why it's so purple. It's like I'm watching TV from inside. and not in a good way, there are now many ways to mitigate the dangers here, but perhaps the most important is to expand the option of voting by mail.

You know, that's what Trump lies about so often. Twitter finally decided to weigh in, so

tonight

let's take a look at why the option to vote by mail is so necessary, why concerns about it are often overblown, and why talking about it right now is really important and let's start with the fact that we actually have a pretty good lesson in how bad Elections during a pandemic can fail thanks to the fact that Wisconsin held its primary just

last

month and it was an absolute chaos, in part because its Democratic governor had tried to delay it only to be frustrated by the Republican-controlled state legislature, supreme court and caucus.

Speaker Robin Vos tried to assure people that everything was safe while volunteering as a polling place, but something about how he delivered that message was a little unconvincing. Do you think voting in person is putting people at risk today? I don't mean, I look at this. and tell myself that we have every chance to be safe, right, Robin? Because you are sending two very different messages, there your mouth says don't worry, everything is safe and cool, but it is being slightly undermined by the fact that your dress code is Chernobyl casual and, unsurprisingly, many did not believe his warranties due to security concerns.

There was a massive reduction in voting sites in some big cities and Milwaukee's 180 voting sites were reduced to just five, creating massive lines and adding to the chaos. the fact that a record number of male votes were requested, hundreds of which never arrived or were late, all of which resulted in sites like this immunocompromised woman who cast her vote while wearing a garbage bag and no one should have to wear a trash bag because You're trying to vote, you should just have to wear one because you're trying to get rid of excess water weight so you look extra.

Oh yeah, I haven't stopped my pumping routine just because of lockdown. I still take the diesel express every day. The sun does not shine before this swollen eclipse runs its course. You might as well put me in a tortilla with a little salsa and lemon because my meat is shredded and look, having been put in this position, you can understand why voters in Wisconsin. we were so angry this is so wrong this is so wrong this this election should have been canceled you know they're telling us to stay in the house and you know to stay six feet away from each other, but then in one of the most important occasions, They are forcing us to come out here, stop playing politics with our lives, yes, that must have been frustrating because you can't pretend that the coronavirus has stopped for a day so you can have an election, no Democracy matters, it's just one of The many ways in which covid19 is the Donald Trump of infectious diseases also have, of course, a strange and disproportionately harmful way for minorities and remember that it was just a primary.

The general election in November will have much higher turnout, so how can we prevent what happened in Wisconsin from happening? 50 times more, one obvious answer is to make it easier to vote by mail, but some argue that is a dangerously radical proposal. Everyone fears that everyone is rethinking how we do things, we should do it in a new way and that's okay, we should keep an open mind. Haven't we had mail-in votes for the last 230 years? Maybe the reason is that mail-in ballots are an invitation to widespread fraud and manipulation and if you want to shake people's faith in the system we've had for centuries, maybe you'd do that I don't know, oh, sorry, You don't know, oh, first, tucker, thank you very much for admitting that one of the biggest problems with modern discourse is that people think that admitting a lack of knowledge is a sign of weakness, when it's not, it's the way that we learn and grow as individuals, so it's really encouraging to see someone in your position admit that they don't have all the facts, like we've been voting by mail since the civil war. and that one in four Americans actually voted by mail in the last two federal elections, so your premise that voting by mail is a new idea that would destroy democracy is, in fact, completely wrong and deeply stupid, but that doesn't is a reflection of you, is that you I just entered into a dialogue in good faith, so thank you, unless you weren't doing that, in which case go yourself, human boat shoe.

Clearly, the question is not whether we should vote by mail because we already do, but rather how difficult it should be. We do, and depending on where you live, the answer to that question can vary widely, for example, if you live in these five states. Congratulations, you now have universal all-male voting where a ballast is automatically sent to every eligible voter now if you live in In these 29 states, you can request an absentee ballot for any reason. If you live in these 16 states, you must provide a reason to vote absentee and while these 11 have at least in some cases allowed fear of the coronavirus to be valid, these Five states also have not decided whether or not it will be a valid excuse to the general election in November and that's not to mention some of the other restrictions states have implemented, the most ridiculous of which is Alabama. where to vote absentee you have to present a photocopy of your photo identification in addition to signing it before a notary or two witnesses and the argument for putting a limit on voting by mail is that if you don't do it people will simply cheat, think about the records of voter registration in states that have not been removed, that is, dead people have not been removed.

You can request an absentee ballot under that name and mail it to a different address saying you moved but you know the person is dead and then say you're back at the old address and go and vote, okay now, Although that may seem plausible to you at first, just think about how many steps you would have to take to make that happen successfully. First you have to meet a dead person, that's hard to do. are antisocial, then you have to know that they were registered to vote when they were alive, then you have to fill out a form to request an absentee ballot by email to your address instead of theirs now to do what you would probably have to redo your entire voter registration, which will require you to know personal information like your address, date of birth, the last four digits of your social security, and possibly your driver's license number and the date it was issued, but it's okay , let's say it does all this. and you receive your ballot in the mail, you may also need to know what the deceased person's signature looks like in order to convincingly forge it because it could be compared to their signature that is already on record and you'd better hope that notification of their death never arrives. to the elections office via any of the routes that could, despite what Janine would like you to believe, voters' roles go through periodic list maintenance, including cross-checking social security death records and After you have done all this, remember to have told the authorities where you live if you get caught, you are risking several serious crimes that in many states involve prison sentences or winning a total of one vote.

It is a difficult crime. High risk and low reward. It's as if at the end of the oceans eight of us knew that Sandra Bullock had gone to the trouble of breaking into the Met Gala to steal a map of the state quarters, sandra, why is twelve dollars and fifty cents in twenty-five cents? That is a complete waste of time, Kate Blanchett's time and, more importantly, her time andRihanna's appearance. Fraud can occur in Opponents of voting by mail love to cite a 2005 bipartisan report that said absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud, but what they fail to mention is that in practice it is still incredibly rare in Oregon in 2016 among the more than two million votes.

By mail, there were only 54 cases of suspected voter fraud, or 0.002 percent, and to hear Oregon's former secretary of state say there's a pretty good explanation for the vast majority of Oregonians not caring about politics at the level that matters to them. I'm willing to risk going to prison for it, yes of course they don't, the only vote Oregonians would risk going to prison for would be a vote to include Portland trailblazer Damian Lillard in the MVP conversation , you know what they would do well, that dollar. for life and look, I'm not saying voting by mail is perfect, mail-in ballots are rejected at a higher rate than those cast in person and it doesn't work for all communities, some people with disabilities need to go to a place of voting in person. to get help voting and places like Native American reservations and remote Alaska villages can have unreliable postal service and plus if you vote by mail you probably won't get one of those stickers I voted for, which if you live in Louisiana means it's You may not have this royal decal with a really excellent pelican look at this absolute king.

It's hard to pick my favorite part of his steely blue look. your crown that says the state of Louisiana has a monarch and I am that or your prominent earring despite not having ears to speak, there is no doubt here, that great water bird, what an incredible motivator to get out and vote in Louisiana, That will obviously be counterproductive. when everyone is right about that pelican as their choice for governor, but advocates argue that voting by mail is still a good idea that would reduce obstacles to civic participation, but that itself may be the reason it has been become so controversial, conservative opponents often speculate that any increased turnout would benefit Democrats even though researchers have consistently found that it obviously hasn't helped one party or the other, and yet some are willing to go as far as the extremes to fight this.

Texas threatened to prosecute anyone who encouraged people to vote absentee because they were afraid of the coronavirus and the lieutenant governor there has been doing some truly Trump caliber scaremongering, when you have the opportunity to steal a vote the Democrats will take advantage of it and This is what it is about, there is no reason for capital. and capital, oh, there is no reason for someone under 65 to say I'm afraid to go vote. Have you been to a grocery store? They've been to Walmart or Lowe's. They have been to Home Depot. They have been? Have you ever been afraid to leave your house somewhere?

No, this is a scam by the Democrats to steal the election. Look, far be it from me to challenge the wisdom of some cultured guy whose shelf is only half filled with soccer balls, but just because he's going to the supermarket doesn't mean people aren't afraid, it means they need to eat at a certain time. Hunger trumps fear, which by the way is also Taco Bell's official slogan, but even in states that are trying to combat it, chances are there will be a lot more people voting by mail this fall, which brings us to our point. final: how will the states handle that?

First they need quick money. Some estimate that the costs of properly conducting the 2020 election during the pandemic could reach 4 billion and unfortunately the concerns. The law allocated only 400 million to the states, which is not enough and this funding must arrive quickly. Some jurisdictions are going to have difficulty handling a large volume of male votes. In fact, take the swing state of Pennsylvania, which only had 107,000 absentee votes in its 2016 primary, but received applications for more than 1.8 million this year, and dealing with surges like that won't be easy — it could require hiring and training. dozens of extra workers to process ballots or buy machinery that costs up to a million dollars apiece, and if you're going to do that, you need to decide now because machines like high-speed scanners and sorters can take several months to order and install. safely, all of which makes it more than a little worrying that some like Missouri Governor Mike Parson, the man you saw.

Before telling voters to stay home if they didn't feel safe, some of them have argued that everyone should relax because there's just no rush to deal with this right now, it's about repairing or being prepared for Clover 19, do what we can for that. about how to restart the economy it's about getting people back to work there will be time to talk about the elections in November in August but now is not the time for that there will be time for that but now is absolutely the time to talk About this, you can't prepare for an election the same way you update your computer software, just putting it off for a month and secretly hoping that maybe you'll be dead before you have to deal with it.

We need to resolve this right now. and it doesn't end there, officials should also communicate to voters exactly how to get a mail-in ballot when they need it and how to fill it out correctly, and in fact, there's one last thing we may need to do in person. prepare and that is that in November, if there seems likely to be an increase in voting by mail, it may take much longer to count all the ballots; In fact, we may not know who won until a few days after Election Day and If it doesn't look good for Donald Trump, look for him to use it to show discord among his supporters.

I'm just kidding, of course he will win in a landslide and his victory speech will be brought to the stage to thunderous applause. That's really in line with the vibe that 2020 has set so far, but regardless, there are a few things you can do here if your state allows voting by mail, you can request and return your absentee ballot early, this will help flatten the vote tabulation curve. on Election Day and as a reminder, if you need a stamp, these little beauties will be available for two more weeks and in fact, there's one last issue that maybe we can help you with here because if what's stopping you from voting by mail is Not being able to get a free fun sticker, we've got you covered.

We've designed four that you can print at home, including one that says "I wanted to let people know I voted by mail," so I printed this I voted by mail sticker with a picture of this hamster and a speedometer sticker that features a ghost with an x and the legend I'm not dead and I voted by mail and finally, in the spirit of Louisiana, one featuring this emu in a top hat. with a nose ring for no reason, all of these are available to you at Vote by Mail.com and I would seriously consider doing so because if you vote by mail you will not only be exercising your civic duty, but you will also be doing Tucker Carlson is really angry and What better incentive is there to do absolutely anything than that?