S11 E26: Election Subversion 2024 & Waffle House: 10/13/24: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

News Items

• Kamala Harris released her health records, and it was discovered that Trump sent COVID-19 tests to Putin early in the pandemic (36s).
• Florida braced for Hurricane Milton, which caused extensive damage, but thankfully not as dire as predicted, and provided a reminder of the Waffle House Index, a widely used metric for storm severity (42s).
• The Waffle House Index is an unofficial indicator of the severity of an impending storm, based on whether the nearest Waffle House is closed or not, and it originated with the government around 20 years ago (1m42s).
• Waffle House has a fanatical devotion to staying open during and after disasters, which has led to a business strategy centered around keeping their restaurants operable during these times (2m29s).
• The company's Twitter feed features updates on which restaurants are closed, and they know people take this seriously, as evidenced by their sober posts and maps (2m48s).
• Waffle House has become a symbol of hope during natural disasters, with their restaurants remaining open and providing a sense of normalcy, despite embodying total chaos in other aspects (3m34s).
• The chain is known for its chaotic atmosphere, including frequent brawls, staggering variations of hash brown bowls, and jukeboxes stocked with food-related knockoff songs (3m43s).
• Waffle House has a unique system for line cooks to keep track of orders, which involves using jelly packets to mark different types of toast, such as white, wheat, and raisin toast, with specific placements and orientations indicating the type of toast (5m2s).
• The system also uses other items, such as pickle slices and mayo packets, to convey information about sandwich orders, with specific placements and combinations indicating different types of sandwiches (6m54s).
• The system is complex and can be confusing, with one employee explaining it in a TikTok video and an official training video showing how to convey a sandwich order using the system (5m0s).
• The system is so complex that it has been compared to a code that needs to be learned, with one commenter saying that they would rather take a "shots fired" call as a 911 dispatcher than try to understand the system (8m1s).
• The system is an example of how Waffle House combines chaos with order, with the restaurant using a unique and complex system to manage orders in a fast-paced environment (4m42s).
• Vanderbilt University fans celebrated their win over Alabama by throwing their football stadium's goalpost into the Cumberland River, a tradition that involves destruction of property but is seen as a fun and celebratory act (8m48s).
• The act of throwing objects into the Cumberland River is not uncommon, as people often dispose of items such as cheeseburgers and furniture in the waterway (9m41s).

Voting Stickers and Election Predictions

• The main topic of discussion is voting, which is the only adult endeavor that gives out stickers as a reward (9m48s).
• In Michigan, voters will receive one of nine stickers designed by 12-year-old artist Jane Heus, which is intended to be a symbol of powerfulness and pride (10m17s).
• The current election is expected to be close, with polls in key battleground states showing candidates within one or two points of each other (10m51s).
• It is predicted that the election will inspire depraved tweets, Nate Silver will tweet that the results were expected, and if Trump loses, he will not concede gracefully (11m8s).
• Trump has already stated that he will only accept the results of the election if it is "fair and legal and good," and has been laying the groundwork to claim that the election was rigged if he loses (11m30s).
• Trump has made claims that his opponents cheat and that they will try to cheat in the current election, but it is hoped that the cheating can be kept to a minimum (11m38s).

Trump's "Election Interference" Claims

• Trump and his campaign have co-opted the phrase "election interference" to refer to various issues, including his multiple indictments and the fed's decision to cut interest rates (12m21s).
• Trump has posted about "election interference" with his own mug shot, which has been criticized for being poorly taken (12m32s).
• The possibility of election subversion in the upcoming election is a concern, especially since Trump hasn't faced consequences for his past actions and has even gained popularity after his indictment (12m53s).
• Trump has bragged about his increased popularity despite being indicted for interfering with a presidential election (13m4s).

Election Subversion Concerns and Past Attempts

• Trump and his supporters have taken steps to undermine the upcoming election, including spreading lies to undermine confidence in the process, causing chaos in voter rolls, and laying groundwork for a post-election nightmare (13m36s).
• The 2020 election saw various attempts to subvert the results, including Trump's refusal to concede, Giuliani's false claims about voter fraud, and the "cyber ninjas" audit in Arizona (13m58s).
• The "cyber ninjas" audit involved searching for bamboo in ballot paper to prove foreign interference, which was widely criticized as a racist and baseless conspiracy theory (14m47s).
• Despite the chaos of the 2020 election, there have been some positive developments, including a joint statement from federal election infrastructure officials calling it the most secure election in American history (15m11s).
• Congress has passed the Electoral Count Reform Act, which prevents a vice president from throwing out votes they don't like, and Trump is not an incumbent this time, limiting his ability to pressure the DOJ to legitimize claims of fraud (15m20s).
• Election deniers who ran for chief election officer positions in swing states in 2022 all lost, which is seen as a positive development (15m35s).

Non-Citizen Voting Claims and Debunking

• A poll in January found that more than a third of Americans still do not accept Biden's victory as legitimate, and Trump and his allies have been ramping up their lies as election day approaches, including the claim that many noncitizens are going to be voting (15m51s).
• Trump has been pushing the claim that many noncitizens, including those from prisons and mental institutions, are being encouraged to vote, despite not being able to speak English or knowing what country they are in (16m11s).
• This theory is caked in racism and does not make sense, as it is unlikely that people would risk entering the country just to vote (16m41s).
• Trump is not alone in pushing this claim, as he has support from conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, which released a video claiming that 14% of respondents in a Georgia apartment complex admitted to being non-citizens registered to vote (17m12s).
• However, the Oversight Project itself admitted that it was unable to find the people they talked to on the state voter rolls, and state investigators found no evidence that any of the seven people on the tape had ever registered to vote (18m3s).
• One of the women featured in the video confirmed that she wasn't registered to vote and only said she was because she wanted the interviewers to go away (18m15s).
• Despite the lack of evidence, the Oversight Project claimed that if the 14% hit rate they found held true statewide, it would equate to over 47,000 non-citizens registered to vote in Georgia (18m35s).
• However, an analysis of the Heritage Foundation's own nationwide database found just 68 documented cases of non-citizens voting going back to the 1980s, with just 10 involving people living in the country illegally (19m8s).
• This number is statistically insignificant, with more people dying from hippo attacks every year (19m24s).

Debunked Claims of Illegal Voter Registration in Texas

• Maria Bozo spread a claim that immigrants were jam-packing DMV offices in Texas, making it difficult for citizens to get appointments, and that these immigrants were being registered to vote with the help of Democrats, as evidenced by a massive line and a tent with Spanish signs outside a DMV office in Weatherford (19m59s).
• The claim was debunked, as Weatherford, Texas, does not have a DMV office, but rather a Department of Public Safety office where driver's licenses are issued, and no such tents or tables were set up outside the office (21m5s).
• The local GOP chair explained that all voter registrations are uploaded to the Texas Secretary of State's database to verify applicant eligibility to vote, including citizenship, and there had been no recent instances of ineligible individuals attempting to register in that county (21m20s).
• Despite the claim being debunked, Texas AG Ken Paxton announced an investigation into reports of organizations illegally registering non-citizens to vote, a pattern of behavior for Paxton who often starts voter fraud investigations that amount to nothing (21m44s).
• On the same day, Paxton's office announced a separate investigation into allegations of election fraud and vote harvesting targeting members of LULAC, the nation's oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization (22m6s).
• As part of the investigation, 87-year-old Lydia Martinez, a long-serving volunteer for LULAC, had her home raided by up to eight officers who took her phone, laptop, and questioned her for hours, making her wait outside in her nightgown (22m27s).

Voter Roll Challenges and Their Impact

• A federal judge recently shut down an investigation into voter rolls, deeming it unconstitutional, but this has not stopped well-funded groups from trying to "clean up" the voter rolls, with some groups using computer programs to automate the process of finding voters to challenge. (23m49s)
• The head of the Election Integrity Network believes that non-citizens voting is a threat to the election and is advocating for citizen action to monitor voter rolls and create a "national neighborhood watch" to find non-citizens on the rolls. (23m55s)
• Conservative activist Cler Mitchell and her group have been scrutinizing voter rolls for the past three years, looking for anyone they think shouldn't be on there, and have suggested searching for certain types of surnames, which could be seen as racial profiling. (24m46s)
• Groups like Mitchell's are using computer programs that troll through public voter registration data, business records, and other databases to find people to challenge, and can make thousands of challenges to voter eligibility with just a few clicks. (25m20s)
• Local election officials have reported receiving an avalanche of challenges from these groups, which can be exhausting and often replicate work that's already being done, with roughly 75-80% of the names already having been dealt with. (25m51s)
• The challenges from these groups are often seen as creating busy work for election officials, who have safeguards in place to deal with any issues that may arise, and are not necessary. (26m18s)
• Voter registration challenges can be either redundant or flawed due to reliance on public databases that may contain errors, often generating false positives and flagging voters who share the same name and birthdate but are actually different people (26m44s).
• A man named Daniel Moss was challenged as an ineligible voter in Denton County, despite having voted there for two decades, and was frustrated to find out he was on a "hit list" of people who shouldn't be voting (27m22s).
• The challenge to Daniel Moss's voter registration came from someone he didn't know, Nancy, who single-handedly sent in thousands of challenges in the county (27m40s).
• A handful of people can cause a huge amount of problems, as seen in Waterford, Michigan, where a county clerk improperly cut over 1,000 voters from their rolls in response to challenges from a 79-year-old resident who believed the last election was stolen (28m22s).
• In Georgia, a new state law allows anyone to bring an unlimited number of challenges against anyone in their county, which has led to over 180,000 citizen challenges being filed, with the vast majority coming from just six people (28m36s).
• Georgia voters have been challenged for minor reasons, such as tiny mismatches between their mailing address and where they're registered, and some have had to attend meetings to defend their right to vote (29m10s).
• Voters like Lender Graham have been challenged due to changes in street names, such as the change from Confederate Avenue to United Avenue in Atlanta in 2019 (29m35s).
• While the vast majority of these challenges fail, they can have a chilling effect, potentially disenfranchising, intimidating, or confusing voters (30m6s).

Pro-Trump Election Officials and New Election Rules in Georgia

• In six key swing states, nearly 70 pro-Trump election conspiracy theorists are currently working as county election officials, with a significant shift in Georgia where Republicans are in charge of the governorship, house, and senate. (30m46s)
• In Georgia, three Trump-friendly members, Janice Johnson, Rick Jeff, and Janelle King, have been installed on the five-member state elections board, all of whom have questioned the results of the 2020 election. (31m6s)
• Trump has publicly praised these three members, calling them "pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory," which raises concerns about their impartiality. (31m24s)
• One of the members, Rick Jeff, has expressed interest in joining the Trump administration if they win in November, which may indicate a conflict of interest. (31m52s)
• The three members have pushed back against insinuations that they are working for Trump, with one member claiming she has faced "character assassination, media murder, and lawfare lynching." (32m11s)
• The state elections board has passed new rules that will make it easier to sow doubt in the certification process, including a requirement for a full hand count of ballots in each precinct to take place either the night of the election or the next day. (32m27s)
• This hand count requirement has the potential to cause chaos, as experts have explained that counting large numbers of ballots by hand is a tedious process prone to human error, which can be exploited to spread lies and further distrust in elections. (32m47s)
• Dozens of election officials have stated that a hand count of all ballots will be physically impossible in all but the smallest counties, which may trigger another new rule that bars counties from certifying the election until officials can review investigations of every precinct with inconsistent totals. (33m45s)
• This rule gives county boards the power to exclude entire precincts from the vote totals if they are deemed inconsistent, which raises concerns about the potential for election subversion. (34m2s)
• Some local election officials believe in conspiracy theories, which could be a problem, as seen in the case of an election chair in Georgia's Spalding County who tweeted offensive conspiracy theories, including the claim that Biden will never be president and that Biden is a pedophile (34m15s).
• A new rule empowers county election board members to conduct "reasonable inquiry" into allegations of voting irregularities without setting deadlines or defining what a "reasonable inquiry" means (34m30s).
• One of the Trump-friendly appointees seemed unconcerned about not defining "reasonable inquiry," and despite being asked to do so, they still haven't provided a definition (34m51s).
• Experts say that the "reasonable inquiry" rule could allow rogue election officials to drag inquiries past certification deadlines, potentially affecting the outcome of the presidential race (35m35s).
• Local officials in a handful of rural counties in Georgia could exclude enough votes to affect the outcome of the presidential race (35m50s).

Preparing for Election Chaos and Its Aftermath

• It's likely that there will be a storm of challenges to the election results, including lies about immigrants voting, mass voter challenges, and new processes to slow down and question vote counts (36m4s).
• Unless there is an absolute landslide, the outcome of the election may not be known on November 5th, and if Harris wins narrowly in Georgia, there may be legal battles stretching into December or beyond (36m14s).
• Trump will try to exploit any delay or uncertainty unless he wins outright, in which case he'll claim he triumphed over a rigged system (36m33s).
• To prepare for the election, it's essential to make a plan to vote and help others do the same, including checking voter registration, voting early, and being resilient against the storm of toxic nonsense that Trump and his allies may stir up (36m44s).
• The last election was chaotic, but the guardrails held, and it is crucial to ensure they hold up again in the future (37m40s).
• If the guardrails continue to hold, it will be a significant accomplishment deserving of recognition (37m45s).

Show Break and Bacon Sandwich

• The show will be taking a break and returning on October 27th (38m1s).
• A bacon sandwich is mentioned in a seemingly unrelated and humorous context (38m18s).