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Video: John Oliver Debunks Trump's Mail-In Voting Scaremongering
By
Ben Yakas
Published Jun 1, 2020
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Jun 1, 2020
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John Oliver started off the latest episode of Last Week Tonight by addressing the policy brutality protests across the nation in the wake of the death of George Floyd. "There is clearly a lot to discuss here — how these protests are a response to a legacy of police misconduct both in Minneapolis and in the nation at large, and how that misconduct is in and of itself built on a legacy of white supremacy that prioritizes the comfort of white Americans over the safety of people of color," he said.
After criticizing Tucker Carlson's coverage of the protests and Donald Trump's predilection for using various "racist maxims of the 20th century," he pivoted to the main story of the evening: Trump's fearmongering attacks against mail-in voting, and why the country will need mail-in voting more than ever this November.
Oliver noted that mail-in voting has become a "favorite subject" of Trump's: "He's tweeted about it a ridiculous number of times over the last two months, and he brings it up constantly," said Oliver. "The thing is, voting by mail is a popular idea. Seventy percent of us are in favor of allowing any voter to vote by mail if they want to. And if this pandemic continues into the fall, as it almost certainly will, people will want to do exactly that."
He then discussed Wisconsin, where they attempted to hold their primary during the pandemic to disastrous results, and Tucker Carlson and Jeanine Pirro’s convoluted, bad faith arguments about mail-in voting fraud. “It’s a crime that is difficult, high risk and low reward,” he said of the relatively rare attempts at mail-in voting fraud. Oregon, for example, had over two million votes cast by mail in 2016, and only 54 cases were suspected of mail fraud.
Ultimately, Oliver suggests that if you're going to vote by mail, you should try to return your absentee ballot sooner rather than later, because it "will help flatten the curve of vote tabulating on election day.” And there are a lot of upsides to voting by mail besides just keeping yourself and poll workers safe during a crisis: “Not only will you be exercising your civic duty, you’ll also be making Tucker Carlson really fucking mad.”
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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