See all LastWeekTonight transcripts on Youtube

Speaker 1

00:00

-♪ ♪ -♪ -♪ ♪ 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.

Speaker 1

00:16

Even idiots. Even this guy. Go. ALL GASP Now, I know it's painful, but his vote should count as much as yours.

Speaker 1

00:28

It should count as much as the president's. That's what America is all about. Now, in recent years, some states have made voting easier. For instance, 3 states now hold their elections almost entirely by mail, and 30 states plus D.C.

Speaker 1

00:41

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 Act. For instance, since 2011, 7 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 claim that they are just simple, common sense measures.

Speaker 2

01:12

It is common sense that you would use picture ID to protect the integrity of the voting process.

Speaker 3

01:16

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...

Speaker 3

01:26

They buy stuff. They need IDs.

Speaker 4

01:28

I'm proud that North Carolina has joined the 34 other states to enact a common sense voter ID law that, isn't going to impact a significant amount of North Carolinians.

Speaker 1

01:39

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.

Speaker 1

01:50

That's not a significant number of people, but you are gonna have a pretty justifiably upset Warren Beatty on your hands. That law 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.

Speaker 1

02:08

North Carolina and Wisconsin have roughly 300,000 voters apiece, with neither a driver's license nor a state ID. And in Virginia, an estimated 200,000 voters may not have 1. And if you think about it, you probably know at least 1 person who doesn't have an ID. Whether it's your grandma who had her license taken away, your recluse uncle who rollerblades everywhere, or your cousin who lost his license after his third DUI.

Speaker 1

02:33

Come on, Jace, you can't fool a breathalyzer by whispering the word sober into it. -♪

Speaker 5

02:38

Sober, sober, sober, sober, sober,

Speaker 1

02:38

sober, sober, sober, sober ♪ And even if you try to obtain an ID just in order to vote, it can be difficult. Listen to what a Pennsylvania woman went through when her state's ID law was in effect.

Speaker 6

02:50

68-year-old Doris Clark was turned down 3 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.

Speaker 7

03:10

You feel like, why am I going through all these things? I'm not Bin Laden's wife.

Speaker 1

03:15

-♪

Speaker 5

03:15

I'm not Bin Laden's wife ♪ -♪ I'm not Bin Laden's

Speaker 1

03:17

wife ♪ Bin Laden's wife? That is a strange way to frame it. Why not say Osama Bin Laden was Amal al-Sadr's husband?

Speaker 1

03:27

Or Siham Sabah's husband? Or Kareem Sabah's husband? Hashtag Osama bin Laden, hashtag feminism. And yet, and yet, none of these difficulties seem to trouble legislators like Wisconsin's Joel Clayfish, who argued for a strict ID law by pointing out his state's photo ID requirement to buy Sudafed.

Speaker 8

03:46

I find it frustrating that so many of the same people who today are telling us that a photo ID is just too, gosh darn much... To maintain the integrity of the ballot, and those same people 2 sessions ago... Made sure, those same people, many of the same people in this room, made sure 2 sessions ago that you had to have a photo ID to buy stuffy nose medicine.

Speaker 1

04:19

Okay, okay. Couple of things there. First, that bill was designed to help curtail Wisconsin's meth problem.

Speaker 1

04:26

And second, voting is a right. If you take it away, you ruin democracy. If you take away someone's pseudofed, 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.

Speaker 1

04:40

In 2012, a study found that in Wisconsin, Alabama, and Mississippi, fewer than half of all ID-issuing offices in the state are open 5 days a week. And in Sauk City, Wisconsin, just a few districts over from where that business casual Kevin Smith lives... -...the I.D. Office is only open on the fifth Wednesday of every month, and only 4 months in 2016 even have 5 Wednesdays.

Speaker 1

05:05

Oh, but don't worry, there's a rhyme. March, June, August, November have 5 Wednesdays, but remember, if you come on days not those, fuck yourself, they're fucking closed. -...---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Every first grader in Wisconsin gets taught that 1. You should also mention that studies have shown these restrictions tend to disproportionately impact African American and Latino voters.

Speaker 1

05:30

In Texas, for instance, experts found that African-American voters were nearly twice as likely to lack voter ID, and Latinos were nearly 2 and a half times as likely. It's just 1 of those things that white people seem to be more likely to have. Like a sunburn, or an Oscar nomination. So, so why are we doing this?

Speaker 1

05:50

Well, if you listen to the legislators who helped 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.

Speaker 9

06:00

The very freedom of our nation is based on the integrity of our ballot box. And if things are so lax that fraudulent voting can occur, that means your vote can be stolen. And simply showing an identification...

Speaker 9

06:22

Is not too much to ask.

Speaker 1

06:24

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, is not too much to ask.

Speaker 1

06:35

Requiring ID can actually be asking a lot. 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. 1 person showing up to the polls pretending to be someone they're not, which is a pretty stupid crime.

Speaker 1

06:59

Because you have to stand in line at a polling place and risk 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine all to cast 1 probably not consequential extra vote. In terms of pointless crimes, it's right up there with forging a Bed, Bath, and Beyond coupon. It's a lot of trouble with low reward. And yet, people insist that this happens a lot.

Speaker 10

07:21

Without photo ID, what do you fear could happen?

Speaker 2

07:24

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.

Speaker 10

07:30

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.

Speaker 1

07:47

Now, that's true. The DMV did say that. And the study caused such a stir that 1 lawmaker stated, we must have certainty in South Carolina that zombies aren't voting.

Speaker 1

07:57

And look, he's right. He's right. No 1 wants that, except possibly for upstart candidate Philip Brains. But...

Speaker 1

08:07

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 election's 207 suspicious ballots, 92 of them were cases where someone had the same name as a deceased voter, usually a father and son. Fifty-six of them were cases where the social security number of a living voter was mistakenly matched with a dead person. Thirty-two were simply scanner errors.

Speaker 1

08:32

1 person requested an absentee ballot, completed it, and then died while it was in the mail. And most of the others were an array of random clerical errors. Altogether, the investigation found 5 ballots that could not be accounted for. This is an election where more than 1.3 million votes were cast.

Speaker 1

08:50

These voter ID laws are the biggest overreaction to a manageable problem since Sleeping Beauty's father ordered all the spinning wheels in the land to be burnt. This is an agrarian economy. We need those wheels. Why don't you just watch your daughter for literally 1 day in her fucking life?

Speaker 1

09:07

1 day. 1 day. --AUDIENCE CHEERS AND APPLAUDS- The truth here is... Voter impersonation fraud is incredibly rare.

Speaker 1

09:18

1 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 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.

Speaker 1

09:39

But let's not overreact to 1 stabby crab. But 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

Speaker 8

09:53

them voter ID Which is gonna allow governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania Done.

Speaker 2

09:58

Do you think all the attention drawn to voter ID affected last year's elections?

Speaker 11

10:03

Yeah, I think a little bit. I think we probably had a better election. Think about this.

Speaker 11

10:08

We cut Obama by 5 percent, which was big. You know, a lot of people lost sight of that. He won, he beat McCain by 10 percent, he only beat Romney by 5 percent. I think that probably voter ID had a...

Speaker 11

10:20

Helped a bit in that.

Speaker 1

10:21

Oh, no! 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.

Speaker 1

10:32

Or a band calling their reunion tour, -"We Ran Out of Money." -$1,000. -$1,000. -$1,000. But perhaps the most galling thing here is that there are actual cases of voter impersonation caught on camera, and you will never believe where they happen.

Speaker 12

10:48

This is state representative Debbie Riddle. She authored the bill that would require voters to show a photo ID.

Speaker 5

10:54

Clerk, ring the bell. It's a record vote.

Speaker 9

10:55

It's all about integrity. Record vote.

Speaker 12

10:59

But the integrity of 1 person, 1 vote doesn't apply at the legislature. We found many lawmakers vote more than once.

Speaker 1

11:05

-♪♪

Speaker 12

11:07

Take a look. Riddle votes, turns around, votes again for state rep, Kimball. Rewind.

Speaker 12

11:12

And watch the men on the screen. Elkins goes to vote for Merritt, but Hancock is faster. Elkins heads back to his desk, but before he can vote, Joe Krab turns around and beats him to it.

Speaker 1

11:23

Holy shit! They are literally competing to press other people's voting buttons! And remember, this is Texas, which has the strictest ID laws in the country.

Speaker 1

11:33

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. 1 lawmaker in Texas died, and was recorded voting 3 times later that day.

Speaker 1

11:48

Which is clearly ridiculous. A real ghost wouldn't waste its time voting on bills. It would be out terrorizing a young family in their new house. Or trying desperately to bang Demi Moore on a pottery wheel 1 last time.

Speaker 1

12:02

And Debbie Riddle is not the only voter ID proponent who has done this. Remember Wisconsin's Joel Clayfish? I mean, there is no way that he got caught doing it, right?

Speaker 13

12:12

A cell phone video posted online shows Clayfish placing a vote for an absent assembly member. Clayfish says the online video is an attempt at character assassination.

Speaker 1

12:23

No, no, 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.

Speaker 1

12:34

--AUDIENCE LAUGHS, APPLAUDS --And... And lawmakers in Tennessee are so shameless about this, they've got the whole thing down to a fine art.

Speaker 7

12:42

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.

Speaker 1

12:49

Look, if you are going to pervert democracy, could you at least do it with a less creepy stick? That looks like what an evil leprechaun would use to beat a child. And yet, whenever legislators like Debbie Riddle are asked about this actual voter impersonation, they say they've done nothing wrong and are only acting out of necessity.

Speaker 9

13:11

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.

Speaker 1

13:22

Okay, well, quick suggestion, have you considered getting some extra long voting sticks? They tend to help. You know what?

Speaker 1

13:30

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.

Speaker 1

13:47

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 f**king club. -♪ ♪ -♪♪

Speaker 5

14:00

you