S6 E28: Voting Machines & Stupid Watergate II: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

[@livafunder7559]

So relevant that I spent 18 min thinking it was a new episode from 2024

[@VanMeatBacco]

All you have to do is look at the gray in his hair.

[@varajalka]

@@VanMeatBacco True but, I thought he might have dyed it for a joke later on the episode or something.

[@VanMeatBacco]

Hahaha yeah that's on brand. You're right though, the topic is still relevant sadly.

[@skeewiffenator]

Not an accident. Early voting is kicking off

[@quintuscrinis]

Akwardly his curent message is that the vote wasn't manipulated - despite this episode making the argument that it would be rather too easy to do so 😅😢😅

[@CanonFodd3r]

What I love about John is he rarely ever hold for applause after he makes a point unlike other hosts that will hold until the audience applauses

[@plabcentral630]

He is British. They tend to not wait and just keep going.

[@Rowsy91]

Agree I like that. Sometimes they interrupt too much with laughs or applause

[@dogsbecute]

@@plabcentral630 he waits sometimes, when hes laughing with them. lol

[@crypticcorgi8280]

Bruh, the "being born in Ukraine makes him a spy" logic. Is the same mistake we made with the Japanese-American internment camps here on U.S. soil during WW2.

[@ravenlit]

Say that louder for the morons in the back!

[@alexgoslar4057]

How is it possible that fifty percent of Americans still consider D. Trump a potential president?

[@jonathanshaw8868]

Tell me how he destroyed the country in his first term, how supporting Ukraine is going to help American people, or how anything has been better in these last for years and I'll give you a answer.

[@T887thdn]

@@jonathanshaw8868he failed at a response to covid, he gave a tax cut to the rich instead of the working class, he is a convicted felon, a unapologetic liar, he is an adulterer, Russia is blackmailing him, he is suffering from dementia, do you need more?

[@agiar2000]

@@jonathanshaw8868 1. Everything Trump did and everything he said was wrong and damaging to America. He attempted a fascist coup. He packed the Supreme Court with anti-choice conservatives who have since supported the idea of presidential immunity for any "official act", arguably including assassinating a political opponent. He dismantled the pandemic response team prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and then lied about it to the American people, contributing to millions of deaths, the legitimizing of his presidency led to a dramatic rise in hate crimes and overtly fascist movement in America, among other things. 2. Supporting Ukraine is good to do even if it does not help American people; that is a selfish perspective. That said, assisting democratic allies against authoritarian enemies is good for geopolitics for _everyone._ 3. Inflation has gone down, we have not been inundated with constant scandals from the White House, The American Rescue Plan funded our national vaccination campaign and helped safely reopen America’s schools, the cancellation of billions in student loan debt for millions of Americans, as well as the largest increase in Pell Grants in over a decade, and a whole lot more.

[@lovelylesbian5135]

​​@@jonathanshaw8868 How is supporting Russia helping us either? If you want a facist leader you can just move to Russia instead of trying to subject everyone else to trump

[@tortotheconqueror]

Russia trying to hack the 2016 election is proof enough that Russia is an enemy of the United States. Never mind their blatant disregard of international law. Ukraine is populated by human beings, who want to be free of Russian agression. Supporting Ukraine is hurting Russia, so it is in our best interests to continue doing so.

[@Kannushi5]

"Running out of ways to defend the president" oh, Past John. You have no idea how deep that rabbit hole is going to go.

[@artrogers3985]

We survived this before. Please VOTE 🎸

[@agiar2000]

I agree. I would add that we BARELY survived. American democracy only survived because a small handful of Republicans put their country over their party and refused to kowtow to Trump's treasonous demands. Those Republicans have all been removed and replaced with a party that is almost exclusively based on personal loyalty to the most evil person in the country. I am worried that this is going to be even worse than 2020's election.

[@lukek5909]

Hahaha bad news buddy

[@microafro1979]

"He brought the log and she brought the cabin..."

[@stellabee24]

12:59 well i mean, Drake was one of the producers on Euphoria and he definitely knows teens

[@Rowsy91]

Lmao teens are the one thing Drake knows well

[@catboy6451]

He a fan he a fan he a fan

[@Eagle1freedom]

Trump spins lies faster than a kid on a sugar high at a birthday party. At this point, I'd trust a toddler's crayon drawing over his speeches!

[@angelowentzler9961]

Uncannily, the election falls on November 5 this year too!

[@TillyOrifice]

It somehow seems appropriate to hold it on Guy Fawkes day.

[@kisaragi-hiu]

Actually saying "bleep" in place of a swear word (and succeeding in not getting bleeped for it) is actually really great, I should try that sometime…

[@lloydsumpter7735]

Just a small correction: having a modem is NOT "connected to the Internet". They used modems to communicate directly to their servers. But.... phone modems are notoriously easy to hack into...

[@tuckerj5789]

Not entirely true. Some private networks are considered part of the internet (internet protocols like IPv4 and IPv6 do support private, local addresses, after-all). It all depends how they are set up.

[@DdlyHeadshot]

So is the phone system itself: someone could literally just redirect the call!

[@himdel]

13:13 - oooh, that explains the "hanging chad" bit in that one HIMYM episode

[@aabu4995]

Wait. I’m pretty sure the US armed force person named Vinman is the one running for Congress now that I see when watching last week tonight on here. Has my vote!

[@Rowsy91]

28:32 lmaooo my man with the sneaky dig "close"

[@riptiderob5433]

Prior to today, I had no idea that whole Tooth Fairy thing was an option, and my orthodontist should be scared.

[@jnmsks6052]

I'm in Michigan and my first election was 2000. In that election and every election since, I've had a paper ballot with "fill in the rectangular bubble with blue or black ink". My guess is that they run these through a machine to count like Scantron tests. IMO, that would at least be the most efficient way to count and better than a human hand count. As for just voting on a screen and getting no printout to return as a completed ballot, that would make me nervous. I'd be ok using a machine, but I'd want to be able to look at the result before I submit because you could have them programmed to show one thing, but result in a different vote. That would be easy for any programmer. That doesn't necessarily mean it is happening or has happened, but I think producing a printout when a computer screen is used for casting votes would help people feel better about the system as well.

[@corybaldwin1168]

In Canada we just make a big X in a circle with a Sharpie on a piece of paper. I do have to say, though, that it's kinda nice to see Americans express confidence in the security of elections.

[@dougallen9689]

You got sharpies? I don't think I've ever voted when it wasn't just 3 inches of disposable pencil. Maybe it's an Alberta thing.

I worked an election (don't remember provincial or federal) back when I was in cégep. It was dead simple. At the end of the day we open up the box and sort the ballots into each choice and those that are spoiled. Everyone counts each stack of ballots until we agreed. Then the totals are written on a form, we all signed the form, then the ballots are sealed back into a box with tamper evident tape with our signatures again and that goes to the returning office.

[@Rowsy91]

@@dougallen9689that’s closer to my experience in Ontario

[@davidfortier6976]

@@dougallen9689 Same. It's always been a "golf pencil".

[@Shinigami13133]

​@@Rowsy91 I've never gotten anything other than a pencil either in ontario

[@zoewood555]

We are voting a week from today on November 5th. Crazy

[@MobyShtick]

Thanks for the great content. You're one of the greats!

[@IreneSirian]

Boycott MAGA FOX NEWS.

[@Rowsy91]

Fox News sucks . Also let’s go trump! Win me some money my man!

[@DdlyHeadshot]

Scary day to recommend this, KZbin...

[@eduardososa843]

21:52 That’s the internet 😂

[@tinyliny4ever]

Love love love this man!

[@iyeetsecurity922]

The missus got me a *blue heeler* just under two years ago, and that dog has become one of my best friends. Dogs are *so much better than humans.*

[@JehBasquiat]

Bro every polling place I’ve been too and I’ve still never seen a electronic voting machine 😂 Kentucky broke

[@plabcentral630]

Dang I’m for equally poor state Arkansas and we got ‘em.

[@nhoj30]

I hope you're doing okay. My 2 friends from Kentucky are definitely not doing fine 😅

[@JehBasquiat]

@@nhoj30 I mean, physically, mentally, financially, yeah I’m great, but politically 🤣🤣🤣 that’s another story 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@nhoj30]

@@JehBasquiat 😂😂😂😭💙

[@Mech299]

Senator Colonel Sanders over there, while he makes a vociferous argument, I think it lands a bit... dry, a bit flavorless. You know what it could use? A few spices, maybe... 17 of them. Lemme just look up how to do that for him on my voting machine.

[@mariannefinkel]

If he knew then what we know now, I wonder if Moscow Mitch would have made a different decision about stopping the impeachment ? If so, then Adam Schiff was correct!

[@phyllisharrison3239]

Moscow Mitch works for Russia so I don’t think so.

[@neothaka]

This public criticism in this bit has aged like milk. Not only did any of this harm his presidency, he's set to have a real chance of being re-elected, Just ducking insane.

[@AmericanArchon]

Surely you mean "bleeping insane."

[@plabcentral630]

For him or against him? I can’t really tell form this.

[@Rowsy91]

He’s gonna win. He’s a big fav on every betting site

[@aabu4995]

Funny how the narrative suddenly changed to “most secure election in history “

[@travelinjones9730]

Why is voting in the US so complicated? Why so many methods with so many shortcomings? I get a paper ballot, mark one or more circles with an X, put the paper in a box, and the results are announced within hours of polls closing. Why make a complicated ordeal out of what we do simply and efficiently?

[@MusicfromMarrs]

I will offer that Sean Spicer > Eric Roberts on DWTS.

[@KeVin-gu3xx]

If someone is really truly against saying swear words, then they would find the language necessary to deliver their message without implying swear words by saying “bleep”

[@whydoineedahandle1058]

I don't think she's against swearing it's just that for most broadcast channels in the US (I'm not sure of the qualifications but HBO is exempt) swearing without a content warning on the program results in a fine

[@spacepirateivynova]

I would say 'hindsight 20/20', but trump's hindsight these days seems to have a bad case of macular degeneration.

[@eddymahon1503]

I can’t believe I’m watching these past episodes and it’s actually 13 days until Trump could be elected President again. What is wrong with people?.😡😡

[@Fools_Requiem]

Did that lady actually say "Chickenshit" on MSNBC or did they ask her to say it for the show?

[@justjenperiod]

She really said it.

[@darthmaul216]

This is why mail in voting is better

[@lunaletuna]

why is there no federal standard voting system???? it wouldn't be hard if you use a pgp key system for each voting syetem unit to secure it

[@fuckaduckjim]

I've thought about this before too.. but PGP is just a trustless certificate system. You want a trusted certificate chain tied to a US GOV voting root cert, not just random PGP keys because you want to be able to trust each individual key is linked to a registered voter. A lot of people have an issue with mandated/required voter IDs & anything like this would effectively be exactly the same thing. And even if we managed to make it happen, GOV would have to change the root cert & re-register new voters with certs every year because a lot of registered voters leave the system & won't vote in the next election for one reason or another.. because managing CRL's like that gets messy & is another attack vector. Using such "advanced" tech to select the president is a lot to ask from average people, a lot of people just don't trust high tech stuff.

[@f0rtytw0mccarte39]

Because administration of elections is the responsibility of the States

[@ZHZhuull]

Back in the early 1900s there was no federal standard for the voting system because the Democrats were terribly corrupt nowadays it's the same situation but it's the Republicans that are the ones that are terribly corrupt and blocking such measures.

[@AnonYmous-spyonmepls]

I've been researching why that wouldn't work for 4 years now and the short anwser is secure internet implies that there exists a function that gives you the n th prime and contradicts the existence of time and consequently cryptography itself. Please avoid thinking that any secure internet connection is possible, its not.

[@lunaletuna]

@@AnonYmous-spyonmepls You can have the most insecure internet on the planet in the middle of def con, as long as the client and server are well integrated with a certificate system. It'd take you years to even crack it; a simple https connection can do wonders. Now the issue here is possible cracking the hardware, key leak, or cutting up the connection. Falsifying votes would be practically impossible, and would be even more secure then any other method of casting a vote.

[@dogsbecute]

they gaslit the hell out of those people, "how are you so sure they got your vote right?". Its because they trust the institution, we dont have a history of obvious fuckery like in other places. in 2008 i worked for the board of elections when obama was running for president, and we had record number of new registered voters. we hand sorted thousands of registrations every morning. our work days began at 7am and ended at 9pm for months. we were all still excited for election day, knowing the shit show that was going to unfold. That was also the first year we switched to electronic voting, and we spent years working on those machines. I know personally how much work they put into the voting machines to get them to work. We had so many practice elections, filling out paper ballots and feeding the machines so the technicians can troubleshoot them and fix the software for election day. On election day, we had millions of votes, and it was such a contested election that we were forced to hand count every. single. one. I was one of multiple people that agreed to work overnight to count the ballots and sort them. Whatever party you are, you have someone from the opposite party literally counting the same ballot as you, and an officer. Me and my compatriot and a few other people spent the next 8 hours sorting millions of votes. The cops were feeding us coffee and donuts. I got 2 hours of sleep before going back to the counting. The police verified everything at every step. I was 20. That experience working there showed me just serious our country takes the elections, and your vote DOES count, AND gets counted!!!!

[@HT-vm6zm]

I'm glad we us paper

[@elaineb7065]

Same

[@Tonyhouse1168]

I’m glad we our paper

[@crypticcorgi8280]

The confusion of of that witch hunt shirt is just a symptom of their cognitive dissonance.

[@joannejohnson7006]

😂 thank you

[@aaronsherwin6903]

#2 like! Love this show

[@josephseidman9074]

We're number 3!

[@Jauuum-pbm]

The americans could learn a thing or two about electronic voting with brazil

[@Aurelia-dp3td]

Happy birthday to Kamala our next Madam president🎉🎂💙💙

[@Zeppelin_Wooper]

She’s not winning lol

[@Zeppelin_Wooper]

@@Onarca I hope she does, trumps a facist, but I don’t think she will

[@katwalkable]

@@Zeppelin_Wooper dear 😅hyena 😅lol 😂

[@herbaldragonX]

​@@Zeppelin_Wooperchild

[@Boomer1956]

@@Zeppelin_Woopercry harder 🤡💯👍🏼

[@PremierCCGuyMMXVI]

26:09 I live in New Jersey…

[@EthisProtogen]

So I voted in NJ in 2020, they did end up using paper ballots there (or at least in Somerset County)

[@fahlmancomputing8628]

Possible correction, although I'd imagine if this was the case you'd have corrected this long ago, but direct modem to modem connection would not be Internet connected in any way, so maybe Stan was telling the truth in that interview after all?

[@vidian3862]

[@wojciechkowalski7554]

Damn John, kink-shaming before the two minute mark. That's rough.

[@joshpiotrowski3487]

You used a bolt action rifle in your duck hunting outfit talking about the witch hunt shirt. Rifles are famously.... not for waterfowl

[@ray_donovan_v4]

11:54 😂😂😂😂😂

[@nealrasmussen4832]

Landline to a secure modem is not the internet. Still hackable, but not via 'internet' hacking.

[@AB-ov1zm]

Presidents interests?

[@chrisfratz]

I just voted in the 2024 election And here in Maryland, they gave me an option to either use a paper ballot or vote with and all digital voting machine. And I chose the paper ballot because having a paper trail is always better.

[@KK-pm7ud]

This is five years old

[@johnchessant3012]

S6 E28

[@chadd990]

This aged poorly

[@gilmanmurray6550]

When trump wins are you leaving America

[@PresidentCamacho2024]

trump lost in 2020,. did you leave?

[@gilmanmurray6550]

@PresidentCamacho2024 No

[@Xtopher]

Just watched another video from 5 years ago thinking it was new...I've watched them all week by week so I've already seen this. Unsubscribing. Super annoying.

[@moogle68]

lmao, literally so dumb that you retaliated against your own inability to read a title by unsubscribing from a channel that was just generously uploading previously unavailable content in the form of entire seasons of full episodes. Also, complaining about having to scroll through your feed a bit more than usual on the rare occasion that they upload a whole season at once is just pathetic.

[@plabcentral630]

He’s doing this becuase hbo would normally make people pay, but he refuses and releases him.

[@Rowsy91]

So you are a pretty slow guy then huh?

[@Mike-Wellman]

I unsubscribed because you keep uploading old episodes and not the new ones, I don't watch tv and I don't have apps I only watch KZbin so until you start putting the show back on KZbin when it comes out, I will not be watching this show anymore

[@moogle68]

You posted this exact comment on at least two of this seasons episodes now. How ridiculously oversized is your ego for you to think a channel with millions of subs cares, while also being desperate enough for attention that you _insist_ that they know how this minor inconvenience you feel?

[@lisahenry20]

You do know that by making a bunch of these comments on these videos, you're helping to boost them in the algorithm. That would make them more likely to keep uploading old episodes, which is the opposite of what your goal seems to be.

[@theendisoverdue]

Why stop at just commenting on 11 of the episodes, there’s like 26? Not just dumb but lazy too