Well, now the Governor and former lead singer of Midnight Oil...
has turned his attention to an even more pressing issue: Florida's vast stores of registered yet ineligible voters.
CHUCK TODD (6/4/2012): Republican Governor Rick Scott says Florida's voter purge, if you will, is aimed at clearing registration rolls of non-citizens.
Wow. People who live in fear of deportation, yet insist on voting. There must be tens of those. But hey, whatever it takes to get those people off your voter rolls. I'm sure there's no unintended consequences.
RACHEL MADDOW (5/29/2012): The Miami Herald has been studying the purge list, they have found "Hispanic, Democratic and independent-minded voters are the most likely to be targeted" by the state's purge.
See? No unintended consequences. Voter purge disproportionately targets Hispanics. Right about now, black people in Florida have to be feeling pretty good about themselves. Nothing being done to keep them away from the polls.
CHRIS MATTHEWS (6/13/2011): In Florida, the early voting period has been cut from 14 days down to 8, and eliminates the Sunday before Election Day.
JUDITH BROWNE-DIANIS (9/16/2011): African-Americans are twice as likely to vote early. ... In fact, the Sunday before Election Day, there are drives by the churches to get out the vote, because the polls are open the Sunday before the election.
Well, why can't they just go to church on Saturday, like the rest of Florida?
....
JOHN OLIVER VOICEOVER: And because of this law, third party registration groups like the League have left Florida, and new registrations are down almost 20%. But for pundits like John Fund, this is a necessary sacrifice, to protect the sanctity of our electoral process.
JOHN FUND: It's a balance. We want to make it easy to vote, and hard to cheat. I think this will help in that effort.
JOHN OLIVER: So, you want to increase voter turnout by passing this law, even though it decreases the amount of people registered to vote.
JOHN FUND: First of all, it doesn't have to.
JOHN OLIVER: It doesn't have to, it just does.
JOHN FUND: Well, the point is, I think any amount of voter fraud is too much.
JOHN OLIVER VOICEOVER: Exactly. And sacrificing 20% of new voter participation is nothing compared to the horrors of voter fraud, which according to the Brennan Center for Justice, happens at a terrifying rate of 0.0004%.
JOHN FUND: Any group that comes up with a number that specific is blowing smoke through their ass.
JOHN OLIVER: Right, you always want to be suspicious of specific numbers.
JOHN FUND: Look, the detected voter fraud that you prosecute and put people in jail for may be one number. But there's a lot of voter fraud out there you can never catch 'cause it's so easy to do!
JOHN OLIVER: So voter fraud statistics are limited only as much as your imagination.
JOHN FUND: (turns head to camera) ....
We here at the Daily Show, we poke a decent amount of fun at media figures, politicians, perhaps at times unfairly so. But every now and again, a politician comes along who is... just truly terrible. And really deserving of more scorn than even we can dole out in our nightly 21 minute, 30 second wiseass-a-thon.
I give you Florida Governor and Mr. Clean impersonator, if Mr. Clean had for some unknown reason restricted his caloric intake for a period of time, Rick Scott. You may remember Governor Scott from his law requiring all Florida welfare recipients to get drug tested, whilst refusing to submit to one himself.
AASIF MANDVI: Governor, you benefit from hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars every year, so would you be willing to pee into this cup to prove to Florida taxpayers that you're not on drugs, that you're not using that money on drugs?
The governor's refusal meant that Aasif Mandvi had to make Aasif Mandvi's famous Governor Urine smoothies without its secret ingredient. (whispers) (The secret ingredient is governor's urine.)
Anyway, Governor Scott's cost-cutting welfare program, while dehumanizing to those needing public assistance, did save the state of Florida negative-$45,000.
Well, now the Governor and former lead singer of Midnight Oil...
has turned his attention to an even more pressing issue: Florida's vast stores of registered yet ineligible voters.
CHUCK TODD (6/4/2012): Republican Governor Rick Scott says Florida's voter purge, if you will, is aimed at clearing registration rolls of non-citizens.
Wow. People who live in fear of deportation, yet insist on voting. There must be tens of those. But hey, whatever it takes to get those people off your voter rolls. I'm sure there's no unintended consequences.
RACHEL MADDOW (5/29/2012): The Miami Herald has been studying the purge list, they have found "Hispanic, Democratic and independent-minded voters are the most likely to be targeted" by the state's purge.
See? No unintended consequences. Voter purge disproportionately targets Hispanics. Right about now, black people in Florida have to be feeling pretty good about themselves. Nothing being done to keep them away from the polls.
CHRIS MATTHEWS (6/13/2011): In Florida, the early voting period has been cut from 14 days down to 8, and eliminates the Sunday before Election Day.
JUDITH BROWNE-DIANIS (9/16/2011): African-Americans are twice as likely to vote early. ... In fact, the Sunday before Election Day, there are drives by the churches to get out the vote, because the polls are open the Sunday before the election.
Well, why can't they just go to church on Saturday, like the rest of Florida?
So, a voter purge weighted against Hispanic voters, closing the polls on a day traditionally many African-American voters cast their ballots. Nice try, Governor! And taller of the two Twin Peaks backwards-talking guys.
That's right, Governor, you heard me! You mildly resemble character actor Carel Struycken. Boom! It's that easy!
Anyway, your little plan didn't work, 'cause you forgot to suppress another powerful influx of predominantly Democratic voters, the newly registered.
RACHEL MADDOW (6/6/2012): Florida's Republican Governor Rick Scott signed a new law last year.
RACHEL MADDOW (5/31/2012): Anyone who registers voters in the state has to hand in all completed forms no later than 48 hours to the minute after the applicants have filled them out.
Is that 48-hour law necessary? And will it even work? We sent John Oliver to Florida to investigate.
JOHN OLIVER VOICEOVER: Most rational people view Florida's new 48-hour registration law as a common sense bulwark against fraud. But some crackpots, like the League of Women Voters President Deirdre McNabb, fail to see how great it is.
DEIRDRE MCNABB: This 48-hour timeline, I would describe it as an insurmountable barrier. Our volunteers don't have time to run down to their Supervisor of Elections office every time we get voter registrations.
JOHN OLIVER: But you can't be trusted with those forms for longer than 48 hours.
DEIRDRE MCNABB: I think our record of 72 years with no problems, blemish-free record, shows that we are trustworthy.
JOHN OLIVER: Well, 72 years of not getting caught, and for that, I congratulate you.
DEIRDRE MCNABB: Thank you.
JOHN OLIVER VOICEOVER: And because of this law, third party registration groups like the League have left Florida, and new registrations are down almost 20%. But for pundits like John Fund, this is a necessary sacrifice, to protect the sanctity of our electoral process.
JOHN FUND: It's a balance. We want to make it easy to vote, and hard to cheat. I think this will help in that effort.
JOHN OLIVER: So, you want to increase voter turnout by passing this law, even though it decreases the amount of people registered to vote.
JOHN FUND: First of all, it doesn't have to.
JOHN OLIVER: It doesn't have to, it just does.
JOHN FUND: Well, the point is, I think any amount of voter fraud is too much.
JOHN OLIVER VOICEOVER: Exactly. And sacrificing 20% of new voter participation is nothing compared to the horrors of voter fraud, which according to the Brennan Center for Justice, happens at a terrifying rate of 0.0004%.
JOHN FUND: Any group that comes up with a number that specific is blowing smoke through their ass.
JOHN OLIVER: Right, you always want to be suspicious of specific numbers.
JOHN FUND: Look, the detected voter fraud that you prosecute and put people in jail for may be one number. But there's a lot of voter fraud out there you can never catch 'cause it's so easy to do!
JOHN OLIVER: So voter fraud statistics are limited only as much as your imagination.
JOHN FUND: (turns head to camera) ....
JOHN OLIVER VOICEOVER: And the people whose job it is to catch fraud, like Elections Supervisor Ann McFall, couldn't be more grateful to have this law in place.
ANN MCFALL, SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS, VOLUSIA COUNTY: The law doesn't make any sense. I don't see fraud in voter registration. It just isn't happening.
JOHN OLIVER: But Ann, I'm not talking about the voter fraud that has happened. I'm talking about the voter fraud that might have happened.
ANN MCFALL: Where did you get these ideas?
JOHN OLIVER: John Fund.
ANN MCFALL: Who?
JOHN FUND: Having a short window, so you have to turn in the form quickly, lessens the chance for mischief.
JOHN OLIVER: Right, mischief.
JOHN FUND: These are government forms. We don't necessarily want them floating out there for too long.
JOHN OLIVER: If you give them anything longer than 48 hours, they will go on a hellbound bender that you would not believe.
JOHN FUND: Well, we don't know. But the longer you don't turn something in, or you just misplace it accidentally, you don't turn some of them in if you don't like them, there is the danger they could misuse that information.
JOHN OLIVER: Well, that 48 hours now seems far too long. What about 12 hours? Surely that's much safer.
JOHN FUND: The point is, they made it 48 hours.
JOHN OLIVER: That's the perfect balance of hours.
JOHN FUND: Yes!
JOHN OLIVER VOICEOVER: He was right. Florida lawmakers have found the perfect solution to stop all this post-48-hour mischief.
ANN MCFALL: It's a figment of your imagination.
JOHN OLIVER: Exactly. And you don't seem to have any imagination. Close your eyes. Imagine thousands upon thousands of cases of voter registration fraud. Can you see it?
ANN MCFALL: No.
JOHN OLIVER: So you don't see a goat walking off with a voter registration form?
ANN MCFALL: No, not in this state.
JOHN OLIVER: But Ann, no offense, you're just saying that because you're a Democrat.
ANN MCFALL: That shows you didn't do your homework. I'm a Republican.
JOHN OLIVER: ....
JOHN OLIVER VOICEOVER: Regardless, the fraud deniers in the federal courts have managed to temporarily suspend this 48-hour rule, leaving groups like the League of Women Voters free to get into hypothetical mischief like this.
This hasn't happened. And it won't happen. And that is why it must be stopped.
on the latest from Guantanamo.
with the average American. He also tackled how Fox News claims the
must be coming from Obama's people in order to make him look good.
And did you know Sweden is letting ordinary citizens be in control of Sweden's official
? Stephen wants in on the action now, of course.
, which went long. Here is the unedited interview in two parts.