Voting Machines: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

i live in germany, and where i live, we have no voting machines at all. votes are always paper votes and they are always counted by hand in the presence of witnesses and then sealed in an envelope for the case of a recount. each polling station is so small that counting takes less than an hour here. for the polls, each polling station is staffed with one member of the administration who works for the town hall and a bunch of ordinary citizens who have been ordered by the state to help with the polls and are usually chosen by lot from the eighteen year old population of the area but not necessarily from the same voting district, possibly even deliberately from neighbouring districts. i was ordered to do this work when i had just turned eighteen. it forced me to vote by letter or by early voting because i had to spend the entire day in the neighbouring district polling station. the entire team witnesses the counting at the end of the day and signs the statement that counting was done correctly. each ballot paper is seen and assessed by all present regardless of age and standing or title. nobody gets paid for working at the poling stations, it is part of our duty as citizens. if you are ordered to work at a polling station and you do not show up, you are punished at least with a fine, i guess they could even enjail you. it is a civic duty for our democracy. many people have done such polling duty at least once in their lifetime. i felt it made me appreciate democracy and strive to vote always. i am not sure if the numbers from such small polling stations are then added by hand or by machine and how they are passed on but at least we are pretty safe from russian interference in our hand count and the initial numbers and we always have the papers for recount.

hey quick question why does nothing in america work like it should

This is extremely relevant now and for some reason everyone suddenly doesn't think so

Who’s watching this in 2020?

"isn't it their job to get it right??" fantastic! best reply. critical hit on the core of the question. love her.

“It’s not the people who vote that count, it’s the people who count the votes.” - Ironically, Stalin.

The way John says “they comptrol the city” gets me every time

This aged like fine wine for right wingers.

How do we get John Oliver onto Dancing with the stars? This is of great importance

John Oliver really out here trying the “if you don’t want to fix this I’ll just tell the entire country how to commit voter fraud until you do” strategy 😂

I always find it interesting to see the American system. In Germany, we have thick pens (sometimes several centimeters in diameter) that are attached to the table (or the paper stand) with a string, sheets of paper that are sometimes larger than the table and also have to be folded in such a funny way that it's quite an art, and the ballot is sometimes thrown into a converted trash can. And in our country, no one complains about vote fraud.

This is perfect for those doubting Trump voter discrepancies.

We have this advanced, highly secure technology called "pen and paper", here in Finland.

me : open youtube go to subscriptions see an owl dressed as a human behind a desk Here we go again

Imagine if this show was done Nov 3, 2020.

Pennsylvania was highlighted on his problem map.

We've had paper ballots here in Ireland since independence. Ballot papers are placed in a sealed box and brought to a central count centre where everyone can watch the tallying. It's incredibly transparent and fair. And cheap.

A friendly reminder: security is not about making a breach impossible, because that's impossible, but rather to make it so hard, risky, and expensive that breaching it becomes cost-inefficient.

Australia does paper ballots and you just fill in numbers with a pen and honestly I haven’t heard of issues. However we also have mandatory voting so that’s pretty banger

I thought the gold bar John Oliver pulled out for that joke was fake, but given his track record with HBO’s budget I’m not 100% sure anymore.