The thing is, voter fraud (what this law is ostensibly created to protect against) is super rare.
Advertisement
Oliver noted that several states have recently ramped up requirements for showing forms of ID at voting booths.
The former “Daily Show” correspondent will be back next Sunday with another half hour of news satire at 11 p.m. on HBO. “It’s just one of those things that white people seem to be more likely to have”, he said.
“While American history is littered with vote buying, vote tampering, and ballot-box stuffing, voter ID doesn’t prevent those crimes”, Oliver said.
Unlike Americans in the 18 states that require photo identification to vote in elections, elected officials have no such requirement when voting on legislation. An ID office in Sauk City is only open on the fifth Wednesday of every month, which means it would only be open one day in four of the months in 2016. The British wit covered a slew of hot button topics including, but certainly not limited to: Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, Chipotle’s e-coli crisis, voting rights (or lackthereof) for minorities, and one New Zealand politician’s press conference attack by, well, a large dildo.
In an interview with PCN after the 2012 elections, Chairman Gleason admitted voter ID laws helped Romney halve President Obama’s margin of victory over John McCain in 2008.
“I think we probably had a better election”.
“In terms of pointless crimes, it’s right up there with forging a Bed Bath and Beyond coupon”. In eight states of the 17 states that require a photo ID, the requirement is non-strict, while it is non-strict in 14 of the states that do not require a photo.
Advertisement
“That’s not character assassination”, Oliver said. North Carolina and Wisconsin face similar issues, with 300,000 voters in each state not owning a driving license or state ID. It’s a process called “ghost voting” and it happens in state legislatures all over the country. In fact, Oliver argues that voter fraud of that level is about as common as “deadly knife play by crabs”.
