09x28 - Election conspiracy theories

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LAST WEEK TONIGH

WITH JOHN OLIVER

Welcome to "Last Week Tonight".

I'm John Oliver.

Thank you so much for joining us.

It has been a busy week,

which started in spectacular fashion

with Heidi Klum delivering this

masterpiece of a Halloween costume.

- Heidi, how are 'ya?

- I'm great. How are you?

- Hanging around or laying around?

- Laying around. Worming around.

Spectacular. Just very good.

From the level of detail to the

response "Just worming around"

to the fact that she was later filmed

dancing in the worm costume.

And it's both impressive

and very depressing

that she's a better dancer in that suit

than I am completely unencumbered.

It's honestly a pretty good lesson

for all of us:

try and be as good at anything in your

life as Heidi Klum is at Halloween.

Obviously, though, there was

a lot of other news this week,

from Lula defeating Bolsonaro

in Brazil's runoff election,

to Elon Musk making big moves

as he starts running Twitter,

potentially into the ground.

Advertisers are already stepping away

from the platform,

and half the company's work force

was reportedly eliminated,

with some painting a bleak picture

of what it's like inside the company.

The most important thing that Twitter

employees want to stress

is that the company is a nightmare

and that you cannot work there.

And the website is built on sticks,

and it might fall apart.

"It's a nightmare built on sticks

and the whole thing might fall apart."

That sounds less like the description

of a vital communication platform,

and more like two of the little pigs

talking sh*t about

their middle brother's house.

But we're going to dive

straight into our main story tonight,

which concerns voting.

A practice that was once sold

to youth with the slogan,

"Vote or Die!" and given

the state of politics right now,

for the first time, I'm requesting

more information on the second option.

Specifically, with the midterms now

just two days away,

we wanted to focus on a dangerous

trend among Republican candidates,

denying the legitimacy

of the last election.

The fake news, big tech,

and blue state liberals

stole the election

from President Tr*mp.

The 2020 election

was a totally rigged election.

Quite frankly, every election

since I think George Washington,

there's been some kind

of a defect in the system.

You could say Biden won the presidency

kind of like O.J. is innocent.

Rhose people are ridiculous,

but they're having a really good time!

Just check out this guy!

I've never been as happy as he is

hearing an O.J. Simpson joke in 2021,

and I have two children.

And the thing is,

those people are not alone.

A majority of Republican nominees

for House, Senate,

or key statewide offices this year

deny or question

the 2020 election results.

And some, like this guy, deny it

while trying to add a bit of spectacle.

Mike Collins here, your pro-Tr*mp,

America-first trucker,

running for congress

here in Georgia 10.

I understand ol' Joe Biden

was in town yesterday

to talk about our elections.

It seems that he and Kamala Harris

called anyone

who disagree with the federal hijacking

of this election a r*cist.

Joe, I got some news for you.

Let me tell you

what Georgians really believe.

Georgians are sick and tired

of weak-kneed, spineless politicians

who won't fight for Tr*mp,

get to the bottom of 2020,

and fix our elections.

If they won't do it,

Mike Collins will.

Send me to Washington.

Okay, too many things

to get into there.

Your brain wants to focus on

"pro-Tr*mp, America-first trucker"

but then wonders,

"Why is he dressed like the

world's angriest Target employee?"

before noticing, "Is that a garbage can

labeled 'voting machine?"

Then also labeled 'cast ballot',

as if they knew the first label

wasn't convincing anyone,

but thought that the second one might?

Then it takes a minute to focus on

the subtle but unmistakable edit point

before the expl*si*n, breaking the

illusion that was sh*t in a single take

then finally your brain says,

"He opened with 'Joe Biden

and Kamala Harris think I'm a r*cist',

did he ever close that loop

or nah?"

And brain? Nah.

That man is completely ridiculous.

Given the district where he's running,

he's almost certainly

going to win on Tuesday.

But it is worth dwelling

on the promise that he,

and those other candidates,

are making,

that they are going

to "fix our elections".

Because that speaks

to a real problem here,

which is that a troubling number of

election deniers are running for jobs

that can play key roles in administering

elections in their states.

Over half the country

"has an election denier

running to oversee their elections,"

and many of them

are expected to win.

We've talked before

about voter suppression on this show,

whether that's through voter ID

laws, felony disenfranchisement,

gerrymandering,

or restrictions on mail-in voting.

But those tactics take place

before you cast your ballot.

Tonight, we're going to focus

on election subversion,

which typically happens

after the votes are in.

It's a strategy to negate

legitimate election results

"by simply refusing

to accept them".

Tr*mp famously tried

to subvert the last election.

And some current candidates

are promising that, if elected,

they'll be able to guarantee

a certain result in the future.

Take Jim Marchant.

He leads the America

First Secretary of State Coalition.

And if they win, he's been pretty clear

about what that would mean.

When my coalition of secretary of state

candidates get elected,

we're gonna fix

the whole country

and President Tr*mp

is gonna be president again in 2024!

Look, no wonder

Tr*mp likes that message.

Also, it probably doesn't hurt

that it's coming from a guy

who looks like a smaller,

paler version of him.

that Tr*mp evolves from.

So, if the plan is this overt, and with

potential consequences this dire

for this election, the next election,

and way beyond,

tonight, let's talk

about election subversion.

To understand what we're facing,

let's revisit, briefly,

some of the chaos

following the last election.

As you undoubtedly remember,

after Tr*mp's loss,

he tried a lot of tactics to swing

things back into his favor,

including calling Brad Raffensperger,

the secretary of state of Georgia,

to ask him for just a small favor.

So, look, all I want to do is this.

11 780 votes,

which is one more than we have

because we won the state.

It's still incredible to listen to that,

and a cold chill ran down my urethra

merely hearing his voice again,

seemingly forgetting, at one point,

both how many votes he needs,

and the word "votes."

It's genuinely amazing to listen

to someone attempt a coup

with the same focused energy

of a dad struggling to remember

his family's McDonald's order.

"Yeah, um, can I get a spicy,

crispy, crunchy chicken

and, do you have something called

'son of the Baconator' here?

Are you the Whopper place

or are you the other one?

I'm in the wrong place, aren't I?

Okay got it, f*ck me!"

Thankfully, Raffensperger

declined Tr*mp's request,

which left him

to fight his battles in the courts,

where he lost over 60 lawsuits

challenging the election results.

He then famously tried,

at the last minute,

to bully Mike Pence

into refusing to certify Biden's win,

including a phone call where Tr*mp

called him a wimp, and the "P" word.

Which I know

is supposed to be "p*ssy"

but to be honest,

"the P word" sounds like the phrase

Geppetto's therapist uses

to talk about Pinocchio.

And while I'm sure

that you remember all of that,

there were also smaller,

much lesser-known incidents

where people further down the chain

also tried thumbing the scale,

like in Wayne County, Michigan,

where Tr*mp supporters

raised bullshit claims

about voting irregularities in Detroit,

and a Republican member of the county

board of canvassers there

proposed this simple solution.

I would be open to a motion

to certify

communities other

than the city of Detroit.

That move outraged the Democrats

on the board,

and speaker after speaker

on the board's public Zoom meeting.

You have extracted

a Black city out of a county

and said the only ones

that are at issue is the city of Detroit,

where 80 percent of the people

who reside here are African American.

Right. I understand

why he's upset there.

Generally, when a white person says,

"I have a compromise",

and starts doing electoral fractions

that count Black people less,

those haven't been great moments

for democracy.

Now that woman later claimed that she

merely wanted more investigation

of those Detroit votes

before she'd agree to certify them.

After pushback from Michigan's

governor and secretary of state,

she ultimately voted

to certify Biden's win,

after Tr*mp called her and a fellow

Republican board member,

they both tried, albeit unsuccessfully,

to rescind their votes.

Meanwhile, a few days later,

at Michigan's state canvassing board,

there was a similar stalemate.

Its four members were evenly split

between Democrats and Republicans,

one of whom

refused to certify Biden's win.

Which meant it was all on this guy

to do the right thing,

which, thankfully, he did,

with this little speech.

As John Adams once said,

"We are a government of law, not men".

And this board needs to adhere

to that principle here today.

This board must do its part

to uphold the rule of law

and comply with our legal duty

to certify this election.

I will be supporting the motion.

And that was it.

A boring guy with glasses

quoting John Adams

upheld democracy.

I'm just saying, get Bradley Whitford

in there and add some stirring music,

and you've got the kind of scene

that would make Aaron Sorkin

cum until he passed out.

And the thing is, those are clearly

just two very local examples.

But in state after state,

we were very lucky

that a small group of individuals

in key positions stood firm.

Arizona's Republican Governor

Doug Ducey

was in the middle of certifying

his state's win for Biden,

when he got a phone call

from Tr*mp,

but he put his phone aside,

and continued signing the paperwork.

And I have to say,

watching someone screen your call

is one of the most devastating things

a human being can possibly experience

and I am so glad

that it happened to Donald Tr*mp.

So, to recap:

the guardrails that protect our

democracy were heavily tested in 2020,

and while some major weaknesses

were exposed, they thankfully held.

But, since then,

there has been a concerted effort

to att*ck the people and institutions

that got in Tr*mp's way,

shifting the landscape in ways that

could make future subversion attempts

even more dangerous.

Now, the fervor around election fraud

has been stubbornly persistent,

with a recent poll

showing 61% of Republicans

believe Joe Biden

only won due to voter fraud.

Which is just ridiculous, given that,

again, there is no evidence of that!

Multiple states

had exhaustive recounts.

This has been litigated.

This isn't one of those unknowable

things that will never get resolved

like which one of the Teletubbies, when

cooked properly, would taste best?

That, we'll never know, will we?

And I know what you're thinking

because it's what I'm thinking, too.

Should we just all say it at once?

Po! Exactly. Of course, it's Po.

Every one of us is pretty sure

that on a rainy day in January

absolutely nothing would taste better

than some braised Po over rice.

With some ginger?

With some wine?!

Of course, everyone's pretty sure

that a Po that simmers

for an hour and a half after getting

properly blanched and caramelized

would melt in your mouth

on that January Sunday!

Yum, yummity, yum!

But, pretty sure isn't sure, innit?

We'll never definitively know

because you can't eat Teletubbies,

there are laws, apparently, so,

all we are left with is gut instinct.

Unlike election results,

which are actually verified.

Sleep with one eye open,

you tasty plump clown,

or I'll have your thick salted thighs

for my Christmas feast.

The thing is, if you're not a regular

consumer of conservative media,

you may not realize

the extent to which

"Biden stole the election"

has taken hold,

and on the basis

of incredibly flimsy evidence,

perhaps best exemplified

by "2 000 Mules",

a documentary from conservative

bullshit artist Dinesh D'Souza,

which is just wall-to-wall nonsense.

The 2020 elections were one

of the most corrupt in history.

See the proof for yourself.

We tracked 2,000 mules

making multiple ballot drops.

"2 000 Mules", the shocking

new movie from Dinesh D'Souza.

Philadelphia alone,

we've identified more than 1 100 mules.

What is a mule?

A person picking up ballots

and running them to the drop boxes.

This is not grandma

out walking her dog.

Bad backgrounds,

bad reputations.

So intense!

Mysterious hand-offs in dark alleys,

people with bad reputations,

it's nice that we finally

have an answer to the question:

"What if 'The Wire'

was created by virgins?"

The central idea of the movie

is the claim there were "vote mules"

who repeatedly visited ballot boxes

and deposited suspect ballots,

and that Dinesh and his friends have

identified them, using cellphone data.

It would take the rest of this show

to debunk the movie's claims,

but very quickly, there is no way

by just using cellphone data

to know whether someone

visited a drop box

or was just in the vicinity of one,

particularly since those boxes

were installed in high-traffic areas.

The only map that seems to show

someone dumping ballots is fake,

and another map supposedly

showing a drop box site

is a stock photo of Moscow,

with a third one the same Moscow map

but rotated 90 degrees.

And finally, the whole theory

rests on these "mules"

repeatedly going

to multiple drop boxes,

but while they show lots of footage

of drop boxes within the movie,

none of them show the same person

more than once.

Instead, the filmmakers

breathlessly scrutinize footage

for clues that they claim,

with zero proof, are evidence of crime,

including voters wearing gloves

during a pandemic,

or taking photos

as they deposit their ballot.

I'm going to show you

a full minute from the movie

where they work themselves up

over absolutely nothing.

- The next one.

- Let me show you dog guy.

Dog guy. Middle of the day.

This is actually at a polling place.

So, the people in line

are waiting to go in and vote early.

They're doing it the right way.

You've got some other people

gonna walk up.

This lady doesn't care.

But this guy, this next guy cared.

He's watching the whole thing.

That guy looks and talks to him.

He's got the ballots

under his arm already,

now he's got the rest

that he pulled out of the bag.

He's going

to get his camera ready

to take the pictures

as he puts them in there.

If you consider the brazenness of this,

this is the middle of the day.

There's people sitting there

watching you cheat.

People that are doing it

the right way.

But it's difficult for them

to know what to do

except observe and maybe say,

"What's going on here?

They wonder,

what does this all even mean?

If this is happening

in broad daylight

and nobody is doing anything

to stop it?

But that's not damning evidence.

That is fully not anything.

It's just someone voting.

And we need to be absolutely clear

on something here,

the guy in line

that they're talking about,

who's supposedly shocked about

the voter fraud he's witnessing?

He's looking at the dog.

As anybody would.

The only reason I can focus

on what's going on there right now

is because, thankfully,

they blurred that dog,

otherwise I, like him,

would be gawking at it and asking

"Who's a good boy"

until the polls closed.

This movie is astonishingly dumb

but it has a real following.

At least 50 candidates

have promoted or cited it.

And conspiracy theories like it

have contributed to what's being

called a "sea of pervasive distrust".

With deniers

now channeling that distrust

to burrow into every level

of the election process.

Take the very lowest one,

precincts, they're small,

neighborhood-level units

centered around polling places.

Political parties

organize in precincts,

and local governments hire

and recruit poll workers there.

Tr*mp's allies have been working

extremely hard

to make sure they are

well-represented at that level,

particularly Steve Bannon,

pictured here drowned,

who has made his precinct strategy

a constant refrain.

What we need right now, the way

the Republican Party is structured

is that you can go to a precinct,

become a precinct committeeman

and then you've got real standing.

We're building an army

of the awakened,

we are taking over

precinct strategies,

we're taking over election boards,

canvassing boards.

We're flooding the zone

with poll workers, poll watchers,

election judges,

people in the room.

It's gonna be MAGA in the room,

counting the votes,

'cause only MAGA

can count fair.

Okay, okay. Set aside

"only MAGA can count fair,"

and just spare a moment

for his room decor,

which features

an actual sign reading,

"There are no conspiracies,

but there are no coincidences,"

a quote attributed

to Stephen K. Bannon.

While you might think that there is

nothing douchier than quoting yourself,

it turns out, you're wrong about that,

it's doing that

while also slyly trying to give

your name a fancy makeover.

'Cause "Stephen K. Bannon?"

Please, Steve. No one is buying that.

Because we looked

and the K is for Kevin.

You're just making your name

even sadder.

But Bannon's strategy

seems to have paid off.

ProPublica found last year that

in 41 key battleground counties,

there were at least 8 500

new Republican precinct officers

or equivalent officials, with no

similar surge from the Democrats.

Bannon and other Republicans

have also been encouraging people

to take on jobs in polling stations,

while issuing some troubling advice.

At one training session for

poll workers and watchers in Michigan,

run by a Republican activist group,

participants were told

to "call 9-1-1 and contact sheriffs

to involve law enforcement

in any election-related complaints."

Which isn't great, is it?

You should clearly only call 9-1-1

with an actual emergency,

a car accident or a break-in

or when someone takes off

their shoes and socks on a plane.

"Hi, yeah,

I know we're in the sky,

but I'm asking you to get a police

helicopter and sh**t us down."

And if you're thinking

that election supervisors

won't stand

for shenanigans like that,

you should know,

many have been driven away.

One investigation found that in five

highly contested battleground states,

1 in 3 top election administrators

left the job after the 2020 election.

When you consider the kind of personal

messages that some received last time,

you do understand

why they may not want to do it again.

"This election is f-ing rigged.

You all know it.

And you are complicit as F."

"You lied. You're a traitor.

Perhaps cuts and b*ll*ts

will soon arrive."

Gave my address.

Hey, Rick. 234 years ago, the

founding Caucasian fathers of America

gave us the Second Amendment.

Time's running out, Richard.

We're coming

after you and every m*therf*cker

that stole this election

with our Second Amendment,

subpoenas be damned.

You're gonna be served lead,

Holy sh*t,

those messages are horrifying.

And by the way,

"founding Caucasian fathers"

is just one hell of a phrase.

Because it either comes

from the mouth of a r*cist,

or someone with strong opinions

on the casting decisions in "Hamilton",

because they are a r*cist.

Reuters actually identified

more than 900 threats

made against election administrators

since the last election.

So, it is no wonder

so many qualified people are leaving.

And their replacements

are sometimes troubling.

Take Nye County, Nevada,

where their top county election official

was replaced by this guy, Mark Kampf,

who not only said that he believes

Tr*mp won the 2020 election,

he's also promoted "2 000 Mules"

and has amplified

some of the baseless hysteria

around Dominion voting machines.

And look, we have addressed

voting machines before on this show.

They do have some vulnerabilities.

But importantly, those vulnerabilities

can be counteracted

by having a physical paper trail

and doing risk-limiting audits

after the fact.

Also, there is no proof

that any machines

have ever been compromised

in a U.S. election.

But Kampf

defends election deniers strongly,

and he will not budge on it

when pressed.

If you don't believe the system

was legitimate in 2020

and created an error

where 30 000-plus votes

were not counted

in the state correctly,

isn't that problematic?

I don't see it

as being problematic at all

because I'm trying to increase

voter confidence in the election.

The machines that count go through

multiple layers of security.

They are not connected

to the internet.

And this is regulated

throughout the country.

That's a perspective.

There are a lot of people,

again, the voters in this county

don't believe that.

And whether it's true or not,

their perception is their reality.

"Whether it's true or not,

their perception is their reality."

I have got to say,

that is a risky stance

for a guy whose name

is almost mein kampf.

Again, it's literally not,

but I've seen his name

written down hundreds of times

while working on this piece

and every single time,

my brain autocorrects it to mein kampf

and, eventually,

my perception will become reality.

I'm just saying,

if my last name were Kampf,

I wouldn't give my baby a four-letter

name that starts with an M.

It'd be like meeting someone named

Earl Harbor or Holly Caust.

It feels like their parents

just went out of their way

to f*ck with them and all of us.

Kampf has suggested that all ballots

should now be hand-counted.

But experts will tell you that, while

hand counting is an important tool

in recounts and audits as a way

of verifying the machine count,

tallying entire elections by hand

would cause chaos and make results

less accurate, not more.

And sure enough,

early voting in that county

has been a spectacular mess,

with the AP observing

two groups of five people

spending about three hours each

counting just 50 ballots,

with mismatched tallies

leading to recounts,

and occasionally more recounts,

and one volunteer lamenting,

"I can't believe it's taking two hours

to get through 25 ballots."

If only there was a f*cking machine

that could help you guys with that.

And that is just one election denier

at a low-level wreaking havoc.

We could be in for a lot worse.

Look at Arizona, a state that Biden

won by an extremely narrow margin,

but thanks to their then-governor

doing one of the most brutal

call-screenings of all time,

things didn't go off the rails.

But he is on his way out now,

and the Republican nominee to replace

him is running ads like this.

Hi, Arizona, I'm Kari Lake, the

Trumpendorsed candidate for governor.

If you're watching this ad

right now,

it means you're in the middle

of watching a fake news program.

You know how to know it's fake?

Because they won't even cover

the biggest story out there,

the rigged election of 2020.

Except every bit of that is wrong.

The election was not rigged,

and the news did cover both

the recounts and the lawsuits.

Plus, if you just saw that ad

for the first time on this show,

you're clearly not watching it

on a fake news program,

you're watching it because you left

the TV on after "The White Lotus",

That is what is happening

right now.

And that ad, which includes footage

from "2 000 Mules" by the way,

is actually tame compared to some

of the other things that Lake has said.

She's called for the imprisonment

of the current secretary of state,

and said that,

if she didn't win her primary,

it'd be because

"there's some cheating going on".

And then, after winning,

insisted her supporters

had simply "outvoted the fraud".

Which is basically, "If I lose,

it's rigged. If I win, it's fine."

Meaning she's approaching elections

with the same objectivity and nuance

of a five-year-old

inventing a game in real time.

"The rules are simple,

whoever has the most tokens wins,

unless you have the most tokens,

then it's who can hold their breath

the longest,

unless you can,

then it's a jumping contest".

But it gets worse for Arizona,

because the Republican nominee

for secretary of state there

is Mark Finchem,

who, as you can see,

wakes up every day

to cosplay as a cowboy accountant.

He seems pretty unlikely to willingly

certify a Democratic win in his state,

given that he said this.

Would you ever accept

that a Democrat could win Arizona,

or do you just not think

that's possible?

I have a hard time

believing that's possible.

Everywhere I go,

the vast majority of people still

show support for President Tr*mp.

But that might just be

because you are going to places

where there are supporters

of Donald Tr*mp.

Is there any chance

a Democratic candidate for president

can win Arizona in 2024?

No! No! No!

I genuinely don't know

what's more annoying there,

the fact that he answered

a legitimate question with a prop,

or that he apparently

tells people "no"

so often he needed

a special fun button for it.

Although between that,

his talking Tr*mp doll,

and his novelty desk sign,

it's slightly heartwarming to know

that a Spencer's Gifts in Arizona

is staying afloat

thanks to the compulsive purchases

of one supremely weird individual.

But the thing is, Quiet Earp over there

has openly told supporters

in a fundraising email that,

if he had been in power in 2020,

"We would have won.

Plain and simple."

And he brainstormed one scenario

of how that could've happened.

Knowing what we know today,

there are certain counties

that should have been set aside

as irredeemably compromised.

Maricopa County was one of them.

Yuma County was one of them.

We have so many votes outside

of the law it begs the question,

what do we do with an election

where we have votes

that are in the stream

but should not be counted?

If you can't find the individual

who is engaged in that behavior,

perhaps that county

has had a defective election.

Yeah, he just laid his plan out

in front of everybody.

Step one: identify two large counties

which, if removed from the count,

would hand the election to Tr*mp.

Step two:

remove them from the count.

Now, is that a conspiracy

to steal the election?

As we now know,

there are no conspiracies,

but there are also

no coincidences,

in the famous words

of one Stephen Kevin Bannon.

And here is the thing, any one

of the people that you've seen so far

would be bad

in the wake of an election,

but in combination,

things could get really rough.

Because there are protections

against one rogue official

refusing to sign off on an election.

They could be sued, and if they refuse,

they could be held in contempt of court.

But experts warn that the ability

of a governor or secretary of state

to reject certification

are significantly enhanced

if others up and down the chain

are of a similar mind.

And to understand a potential

worst-case scenario here,

let's put some of the people

that you've seen tonight into a chain.

Let's start with partisan poll workers,

inspired by Steve Bannon,

deciding that they've seen

something fishy, and calling 9-1-1.

They then kick their claims up

to a county clerk like this guy,

who's maybe willing to amplify

a perception that's not a reality.

That raises enough of a stink

that people at the county board

of canvassers

or the state board

refuse to sign off on the results.

And then,

the secretary of state

takes their side,

refusing to certify the results,

or even arguing that the results

from certain counties

are so flawed that the county's

election has "failed,"

and therefore cannot be counted.

Now, in that scenario, experts say,

a Republican state legislature

could point to supposed irregularities

in the conduct of the election,

and choose their own slate of electors

to deliver a different result.

And at this point, the law is a little

fuzzy on what could happen next.

Because, under the Electoral Count Act

of 1887,

if the state sends two rival slates

of electors

and the House and the Senate

disagree on which one is valid,

the ones sent by the state's governor

gets counted.

Which could be this person.

Now, there would

undoubtedly be lawsuits,

and maybe the Supreme Court

would step in,

but also, you know,

seeing as one of the justices

has a wife who was part of the last

attempted coup, maybe not.

I know this all sounds dramatic,

and I do not want to be too alarmist.

I don't mean

to sound like Chicken Little here.

I don't mean

to look like him either,

but some things are just

out of our hands, aren't they?

Because the odds of Kari Lake

unilaterally picking our next president

are thankfully slim.

But, the odds of her,

and others like her,

being able to create a complete mess,

are significantly higher.

Because everything

that we've talked about tonight

has the capacity

to overwhelm our system,

making it harder

to certify elections quickly,

leading to confusion,

which sows doubt in the process,

and in turn causes

absolute chaos.

Which is very worrying,

given that we've all seen

what confused but motivated people

are capable of doing

when they think

the process is broken.

And we may not have to wait

until 2024 to see that chaos unfold,

as the midterms themselves

are turning into a clusterfuck.

Vigilantes are already turning up

as unofficial poll

watchers at voting drop boxes.

Meanwhile, some very

prominent voices on the right

have been priming people

to contest any result on Tuesday

that is not a Republican win.

Democratic Party has such contempt

for voters and for democracy itself

and so much confidence in its ownership

of the media and of big tech

that it no longer

has to try to win your votes.

They can even

run mentally defective candidates

who can barely speak

and not only expect them to "win"

but expect you to accept the outcome,

no matter how absurd it is.

I get that at this point Tucker Carlson

is basically Cocomelon for bigots,

but that is gross even for him.

From calling a stroke victim

"mentally defective"

to putting "win"

in heavy quotation marks,

and for the record,

one of the big clues

that these conspiracy theories

are bullshit

is that so many of them

are predicated on the belief

that the Democratic Party

is well-organized.

Who on Earth

is stupid enough to buy that bullshit?

So, what can we do here?

There are some obvious steps

that we could take.

On the federal level, we absolutely

have to fix the Electoral Count Act,

the law whose vagueness allows for a

lot of the fuckery that I've described.

Both the House

and the Senate actually have bills

that have bipartisan support and would,

among other things,

close the "failed election loophole"

that might allow a partisan governor

or state legislature

to send whatever electors

they choose.

Even Mitch McConnell

has supported the Senate version,

so it actually

might have a chance to pass.

That is the one piece of good news

in this entire piece,

so I strongly suggest

that you savor it.

But is clearly not enough.

Long term, we still need

comprehensive voting rights reform.

Which is something

we need to prioritize and fight for.

But the first step, and I know this

is going to be infuriating to hear,

is for you to vote.

We've talked a lot

about how part of the reason that

Biden's victory wasn't stolen from him

was thanks to the diligent work

of a few people in key positions.

But don't forget that the first part

of why that was possible

is that a lot of people f*cking voted.

And I get how ludicrous

it sounds for someone to say

"fix the significant roadblocks keeping

your vote from counting, by voting",

I hear it, I promise I do.

Particularly if you're a member

of one of the many communities,

like Black voters, the disabled,

the formerly incarcerated,

and low-income communities,

who've long been sounding

the alarm about all of this sh*t.

And voting is not gonna be enough

on its own.

At every level of the process,

we need people to show the same level

of enthusiasm

for preserving our democracy

that others are demonstrating

for dismantling it.

And I am not saying it's gonna be

easy to match the energy

of people fueled by bullshit

documentaries, flat-out lies,

and the occasional

exploding trash can.

But it is really important to try.

And to that end, we have a message

that we'd like you to hear.

Nick Offerman here, actor,

author, woodworker,

and a man who can actually pull off

a short sleeve Polo shirt

without looking like my mommy

picked it out for me.

And this is a trash can.

I've labeled it "trash can"

because it is a trash can.

I actually labeled it twice

so there won't be any mixups.

But obviously that's unnecessary

because we're all adults

who do know the difference

between a trash can

and a g*dd*mn voting machine.

Far-right Republican extremists

have been running their dry mouths,

claiming that any election in which they

receive less votes than the opposition

must be rigged.

I've got some news for you.

Actual patriots

are sick and tired of shameless,

opportunistic charlatans

who invent dangerous conspiracies,

peddle mendacious propaganda,

and worse, censor good, good dogs.

Because if you're afraid to show

a dog's face, by God, I'm not.

There, there you go, good boy.

You can't stop us from showing dogs

like you can't stop us from voting.

We're gonna do it,

not because it's fun,

because it's not really fun but because

it's the right thing to do, America.

We're gonna look one f*ck of

a lot better than you while we do it.

One sh*t, no cuts.

Vote!

And that's our show.

Thanks for watching,

see you next week, good night.

I got you!

You sweet boy.

You beautiful guy.

You beautiful guy.