Some More News - Some More News: The GOP vs. Your Right/Ability To Vote

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

Hey, hey, hi, hi, you'll hang out with me. You look great. Wait, hold on, you got a little, you know, right there. No, my left side, the corner of your mouth. It's like right, it's fine. You look great. Might just be a smudge on the lens anyway. So here's some news actually.

Oh, here's some news actually. Oh, here's some news. There's an election coming up in soon and we couldn't be more. Excited, right, folks? Yeah, it's going to be great. Everyone's getting ready. The media, the U.S. Capitol Police and who can forget our election officials getting all decked out with their skimmer hats and shiny ballot boxes and bulletproof glass and panic buttons. Boy, everyone seems really tense this year.

Did something bad happen last time? These are doodles. Look, I'm just joshing. I remember, we all remember, or at least our nervous systems do. Four-ish years ago, the losing candidate of the United States presidential election publicly and falsely declared

that the election was rigged and stolen from him, causing a massive riot and attempted silly coup, resulting in injuries and death and a lot of jail time. Not for the loser fraud candidate, mind you. He is somehow running again for president again. And that same candidate, let's call him Donald Trump would later casually admit that he totally did lose that election,

but I guess would then say he was being sarcastic because I'm pretty sure he doesn't know what that word means. But then in the world's least surprising twist, instead of disqualifying the candidate who lied about widespread election fraud, the Republican party would go on to use Trump's lie to escalate a pattern of voter suppression and intimidation

because they love doing that. And so we are now faced with an election year where the GOP might completely hijack the democratic process in the name of protecting election integrity, which I do believe is called irony in that it makes me want to shove an iron into my face. Title. ["Protect the Election"]

Rumble, rumble. All the fun ways the GOP plans to protect the election. So again, can't stress enough that the GOP, which stands for GOP, has been attacking voting rights long before Donald Trump's presidential dreams were but a glint in his goppy eye. Ever since the Supreme Court screwed around with the Voting Rights Act,

red states have passed nearly a hundred laws designed to kneecap the democratic process. But it was Trump's baseless braying over the 2020 election that allowed them to openly launch a full assault. Fueled almost entirely on the right wing fear mongering of immigration. Massive line of immigrants getting licensed. They had a tent and a table outside the front door of the DMV registering them to vote.

It was all, the signs were in Spanish. It was an obvious Democrat operation on this voting, he said. The reality is, the plan from the beginning, get these people here as fast as possible and get them voting. And I truly believe that the Congresswoman is absolutely right. And most states, only three states actually have laws that require proof of citizenship. People who have lived here all of their lives, paid taxes, followed the rules, been good citizens,

would find their votes diluted to the point of irrelevance. They're coming to vote, Democrat. Because after all, if you can double up your racist boogeyman talking points, well, that's just efficient storytelling, folks. Immigrants are, according to Republicans, the source of every problem going on right now. They're why you have that canker sore.

Without looking, I'm guessing they've blamed the disappointing new Star Wars game on immigration. So this has been a Trump talking point for a while, but of course has ramped up as we near the election. And while this is probably obvious, there's no real evidence of migrants stealing votes actually being a concern for our elections. And the majority of these claims,

like that clip we showed about registering immigrants to vote have been debunked. It's a very tired slice of BS at this point, designed exclusively to harness racist fears. Kind of like saying immigrants are eating your pets, more on that next week. And yet somehow, this lie around election irregularities was given legitimacy,

starting when Trump took his case to the Supreme Court, or rather attempted to. The old scrote had no interest in fast tracking these cases and ultimately decided to let the state courts deal with them instead. But that decision, of course, came with a single descent from the billionaire backed, or sorry, coincidentally friendly with billionaires, judge,

and sketchy RV, sorry, motor coach, enthusiast Clarence Thomas. And since then, we've gotten headlines every year about states enacting more and more voting restrictions. At least nine states have passed restrictive voting laws in just 2024, with the majority of these laws being punitive measures that make voting needlessly complicated.

The narrative being that these new laws are designed to protect us from illegal voting. For example, when Texas removed 1.1 million names from their voter rolls, Texas governor Greg Abbott credited their 2021 Senate Bill 1 saying, quote, we will continue to actively safeguard Texans sacred right to vote while also aggressively protecting our elections from illegal voting.

Wowie geez, that is a lot of illegal voters I do declare, except ah, non-wowee geez. Non-wowee geez, non-wowee geez. It turns out that, as Abbott himself noted, around 920,000 of the names removed were ineligible due to an unverified address or being dead, which is just common maintenance that states have to do on account of death being a thing for now.

It should be noted that even these regular voter purges are still pretty fucked up since they often ax anyone who simply hasn't voted for a while. I didn't realize there was a time limit like a freaking photo bucket account. And so ultimately of that 1.1 million, only 6,500 were names of people who weren't US citizens. And even that 6,500 number might still be too high.

Texas actually has a pretty sad track record of purging voters with outdated information regarding citizenship. This includes one incident in 2019 that erroneously flagged 95,000 people as non-citizens, forcing the Secretary of State to resign and also a bunch of lawsuits. In other words, Senate Bill 1 didn't really actually do anything previous legislation and protections didn't already do. It's like if I said my tie protected me from Dracula's, the proof being that I'm currently not fighting Gary Oldman.

I mean, I'll get him someday, obviously. You'll see. He won't. my tie protected me from Dracula's. The proof being that I'm currently not fighting Gary Oldman. I mean, I'll get him someday, obviously, you'll see. He won't, because I'm gonna get him. But what Senate Bill 1 did do, however, was limit the time window that polls were to be open and added restrictions upon those who vote through drive-by or mail-in ballots. It also gave Texas Attorney General Ken,

not cool like Bill Paxton, license to crack down on illegal voter registration, issuing search warrants to investigate threats to our democracy. Like this 87 year old woman. She said officers questioned her for hours, confiscated her phone and computer, and made her wait outside as they searched her home. I said, let me get dressed and she's go outside.

What were you wearing? My nightgown. And I had all these policemen around me. It was embarrassing, humiliating. I was so angry. It was horrible. Yeah, go get them, Ken. Terrorize granny. Kill her. My goodness. That lady was a volunteer for the League of United Yeah, go get them Ken, terrorize granny, kill her. My goodness, that lady was a volunteer for the League of United Latin American Citizens

and one of several members of LULAC that Paxton had raided, along with several Democratic Party organizers. Hmm, call me Cody Rodichoti, don't actually, I don't want that to catch on, please don't, shouldn't have said that, don't call me that. But it seems like they're just going after their political opponents.

And this is kind of the microcosm of this entire quest to big chubby quotes, protect our elections. They take a problem that doesn't exist and create some new restriction they claim will solve that problem that never existed, while coincidentally targeting Democrat voters with those restrictions or just voters in general, or rather any voter who might have an ounce of hardship.

For example, Idaho passed a law making it a crime to deliver another person's mail-in ballot. This puts unneeded restrictions on the elderly and people with mobility issues, and basically makes it illegal to help someone who can't get to the post office. There is some wiggle room for mail-in votes to be delivered by caregivers, relatives,

and postal workers, but the bill also outlaws family members from delivering ballots if they, quote, influence the voter in any way. And like, what the hell does that mean? How is that measured or enforced? And since when is it wrong or illegal to politically influence your family members?

Are they gonna outlaw thanksgiving in debates with your uncle? Isn't like, isn't the entire point of elections to politically influence people? Why did they think people put those little signs on their lawns for the aesthetic? The blue and red cardboard really complements the azaleas? And so ultimately, the only reason to add this restriction

is to limit voting for anyone who is disabled or elderly and lives below a certain tax bracket. Every single law is designed to be a bureaucratic hurdle that specifically affects poorer people with less time to navigate the process. Such is the case with Indiana's House Bill 1264, which requires election officials to compare voter registration info

from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to identify non-citizens. If you get flagged, you have 30 days to prove citizenship or your registration is revoked. And while that sounds reasonable, those BMV records are typically out of date, meaning that if you're one of the 8,000 residents per year that have become a naturalized citizen in the state,

your name will still be flagged if those records weren't yet updated, and you'll have to jump through a bunch of hoops to fix it. More like BM records, am I right? Am I right? Bow movement records, am I right? Am I right? Bowel movement records. Poops. Okay, well, the bill also has a proof

of residency requirement that puts unnecessary voting hurdles on college students, the unhoused elderly residents that don't have traditional utility bills, not to mention people who literally just moved there. If you've ever moved while poor, you probably know exactly the kind of stress they're adding to here.

So now you have to navigate voting registration on top of finding a truck, taking time off from work, and getting Spectrum on the phone to tell them to stop service at your old place to become a Wi-Fi enabled cable ready Hoosier because you just moved to Indiana, like Gene Hackman in Hoosiers. Vote yes on Hoosiersiers now streaming on Globo.

Hoosiers, we love saying it. Hoosiers. Hoosier, Hoosiers, Hoosiers. Hoosiers. You've probably noticed that a lot of this coincidentally restricts college students from voting. Like Arizona, which passed legislation that requires proof of citizenship

before being able to register to vote, which directly impacts students and younger people who don't have a state ID. Tennessee shortened the deadline for requesting an absentee ballot while also limiting who can register other people to vote and even establishing a $5,000 fine to a person or persons who break that law

even unintentionally. And this is on top of Tennessee already having a record low voter turnout due to how hard they made it to vote there. You know those people who stand outside of supermarkets or music festivals and try to get young people to register to vote? You know, nerds. That's who they are going after with these laws by putting a bunch of restrictions on who is allowed to volunteer and how much time they have to submit these voter applications. Kansas and Florida also passed similar legislation

that specifically targets voter registration groups and threatens violators with fines up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The end result here is just a bunch of legal intimidation of people whose only crime is wanting young people to be excited about voting, which to be fair is a gross thing to want. JD Vance Mark I, AKA Ron DeSantis,

J D, Ron, J D Vantis, this guy, also passed stricter mail-in ballot measures that have decreased mail-in voting requests by half since 2022, from 4.3 million voters to just over 2 million. It's important to remember that while it looks like they just want fewer people to vote, which is already weird,

they actually want fewer certain people to vote, specifically anyone who doesn't have the time or money to deal with these new restrictions, as well as anyone who votes via mail, which happens to be largely Democrats. And so throughout the country, millions of Americans could be impacted by these new voting laws,

especially those that live in states that have passed stringent photo ID requirements since 2020. In fact, per a University of Maryland study, 29 million Americans didn't have a current driver's license and 7.6 million Americans didn't have any non-expired photo ID in 2020, especially voters who were black, Hispanic, and or under the age of 29.

There are also stumbling blocks for trans people who either need their IDs updated after their gender affirmation, live in a state in which they can't change their IDs to their identity, or live in a state that requires them to provide proof of their gender of affirmation surgery. So again, they are making it harder to vote

for poor people, college-aged kids, people with disabilities, anyone who just became a citizen or is changing their gender identity, and folks who are black and Hispanic. And G, I wonder if there's a pattern with that group of people. Who can say? Many people, many people can say, nah, who can say?

But the GOP isn't just enacting a bunch of useless laws designed to make voting harder They're also training thousands of poll watchers to monitor voters on election day Which could further intimidate those waiting in line to vote or election volunteers They're even recruiting people to observe voting in areas. They don't reside in specifically taking people from suburban right-leaning areas and sticking them in left-leaning cities. Because if a place doesn't vote the way they want, the strategy is to make that place harder

to vote in. But we're going to talk more about that after the break, as well as about one specific state that seems to be the central hub for all of their election, what, shenanigans, we'll call them. But first, gobble up these ads. Yummy, yummy. Oh, I'm really gonna throat those ads. Come on. Hello, ad watchers.

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Did we fill you up with sweet, sweet ads? Good, because we're gonna get back to talking about all the ways our upcoming election could be cluster mucked or muster fucked by the new voting restrictions introduced by the GOP. And so far, we've mainly talked about the typical ways Republicans have always screwed with elections. They've very often gone after mail-in ballots

and college kids and have generally pushed to make it harder and harder for people to vote. But thanks to Trump specifically questioning the integrity of the process and drumming up conspiracy theories around specifically and conveniently battleground states, the GOP has now begun to inject their sticky fingers into the actual process,

claiming that they're simply trying to protect election integrity. Kind of like walking into the dressing room of claiming that they're simply trying to protect election integrity. Kind of like walking into the dressing room of a beauty pageant while claiming you're just inspecting it. And probably the darkest example of this is happening in Georgia, the ass state. Georgia's GOP controlled state election board

passed a new rule that gives board members more discretion and power to delay the certification of election results. This new edict allows county board members to hold up certification by merely saying that they aren't confident with the results. That's it. No discussion or questioning

whether the claim is in bad faith, a board member can delay democracy by just saying they don't like the result, much like when a five-year-old wants to redo a hand in UNO because they frustratingly don't fully understand numbers, colors, empathy, or even fair play yet. The difference being that you can just shove over a five-year-old, especially if they don't know your name.

Make a note of that. While these board members are much harder to dislodge, one such member is the unshoveable Julie Adams, the regional coordinator for the Election Integrity Network, which was straight up founded for political purposes by an election denier named Cleta Mitchell, who even advised Trump when he made this call to Georgia state officials.

So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes. So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. And yet, Julie, also a vocal election denier, obviously, and again, a member of an election denier group founded by a Trump advisor, is somehow on the Fulton County elections board. Somehow. And it probably comes to little surprise

that Julie has already begun to screw with the elections there. Just earlier this year, she refused to certify Georgia primary results on what was essentially a matter of principle, saying that she couldn't accept the results because of vague problems she perceived with the election administration. She also sued Fulton County.

She then asked for a bunch of materials she'd need to certify. You can actually watch a seven hour video of her going through these documents, you know, if you're sick like that, before Julie asked for even more documents. Ultimately, her lawsuit was thrown out by a judge due to a technicality, but the damage was already done by that point. Adams didn't like who was winning and wanted to show everyone that she could obstruct the entire process and would gladly do this come November.

If you're thinking, wow, they need to, they need to, they need to get her out of there. Turns out they did the opposite, instead adding more election deniers to state election boards, such as Janelle King, a conservative podcaster with no election experience that, wouldn't you know it, questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election. In fact, that board now has a majority

of election deniers, and with Trump's blessing, they've been using that majority to pass all sorts of new rules specifically designed to draw out the certification process. This includes enacting tedious hand counts and that rule I mentioned allowing local election board members to refuse to certify results. Essentially, they are doing anything they can to delay certification so as to give Trump as much time as possible to scam his way into power.

Which if you recall was exactly what he was trying to do with the phone call during the last election, a phone call that he was advised to do by the people who have now hijacked George's election process. So just to reiterate, if these freaks get their wish, the next presidential election could be decided by three MAGA weirdos delaying the certification

in a single swing state, and all they have to do is say the vibes are off. Seems like, perhaps, something is broken. But good news, the Democrats have sued the Georgia State Election Board, so I'm sure it'll all work out. Democrats, definitely always may be getting things done. Anyway, this isn't the only hit Georgia is playing.

They're on that midnight train to... Them. Their governor, Brian Kemp, passed a measure that allows counties to reduce the number of voting machines, which of course could significantly add to Georgia's absurd wait time. But probably the most, as the kids say, whack thing they've done is pass a law that allows

anyone to challenge a person's eligibility to vote. And people have already begun to do this. In one county, a single lonely man challenged over 13,000 voters. That's 8% of the voters in that county because voting should be just like a battle royale, you see. It's not enough that I get to vote. I have to stop your vote. They've also recently made it illegal to vote if you don't list a residential address on your registration form.

That will come into effect in the next election. But for example, this will disqualify anyone who is staying at a homeless shelter, or I guess anyone in between homes at all, or one of the many reasons I can't think of that someone might not have a firm residential address. It's weird and intrusive that they would require that, is my point.

And while Georgia has made it much harder to vote, they've actually made it much easier to unvote. Really seems like they don't want people to vote. Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, introduced a brand new webpage where you can unregister to vote in just a few clicks online. Rock no vote.

You might know him as the guy Trump had the perfect phone call with. No, no, no, the other perfect phone call. And also that guy who shows up in every Pixar film. Great, amazing talent. And while it already feels weird for a politician to be focused on unregistering people to vote, what made this page particularly egregious is that, thanks to it being made by politicians, it was super easy to hack.

You do still need name, county, and birth date, just to be clear. And now this is where the magic begins. I'm going to right click the driver's license field. I'm going to click inspect. That opens up a console window. I'm going to hit delete and just delete it. Delete it.

And then I'm going to hit delete and just delete it. Delete it. And then I'm going to click submit. And my registration has been canceled. It's as easy as that. What you just saw is someone simply deleting the field that required a driver's license number, meaning that as long as you know someone's name, county, and date of birth, you could delete anyone's registration. Legal groups have already called for a cease and desist on the website, along with suing the state. While the bug has reportedly been fixed,

the damage has been done, as the office of Georgia's Secretary of State has already confirmed that the web form has been misused. In other words, this entire quest to protect elections has folded in on itself to the point that it's compromising elections instead, which honestly was probably always the plan. Georgia was and will be a vital state in these elections. And so it's extremely insidious and transparent how much attention they are putting into gaining the voting process there. how much attention they are putting into gaining the voting process there.

It's the prime example of every trick they're trying to pull and also why we perhaps need to completely rethink the electoral process. Or at the very least, I'm just gonna throw this out there, ban the entire state of Georgia from voting. Wait, that's a terrible idea. We shouldn't, we should, we're not, don't do that. But it's also not the only swing state

where election deniers are infiltrating the process, as both Arizona and Nevada are dealing with this, too. Election boards are being purposefully filled with MAGA ghouls for the sole purpose of slowing down the certification process in the event of a Trump loss. And even if they aren't on these boards, there's been enough outside pressure to demand that they do needless recounts. In Washoe County, Nevada, one moderate Republican

and board member was forced to block the certification of her own victory after being pressured by right-wing election deniers. This push was in part fueled by a wealthy businessman and election denier named Robert Beatles, who has been using his money to fund useless recounts and to harass election officials. It's just one rich dude gopping up the process

because he personally doesn't like the outcome. Fortunately, the Washoe County election was ultimately certified after three hours of public comments. But holy upper decker shit. This is all obviously just a dress rehearsal for the main event. I just keep coming back to how obvious this all is and how truly evil it is to use the guise of election integrity to literally do the opposite.

Because in theory, it's good to want fair elections which is probably why we should absolutely reform our election process. Maybe even get money out of the process, who knows? And while some of these new laws are fairly mundane, they're being used to mask other less mundane laws. Laws that very clearly are specifically designed to make new hurdles for certain people.

Mimes? No, no, no, title monkey. Mimes are white, over 30, and exclusively heterosexual, especially that last one. It's in the Mime Bible. No commandments in that Bible. Just a lot of stern looks. No, I'm talking about laws that are so overtly racist

that they are literally Jim Crow laws. As in, there's an actual Jim Crow era law in Mississippi that prohibits people from voting if they have been convicted of a crime from a list of 22 different categories. Some of the crimes include really minor stuff like receiving stolen goods, timber larceny, and writing a bad check, receiving stolen goods, or cutting down a tree on someone else's property,

or just having a check bounce, these are all things that can make you ineligible to vote in Mississippi. The rule was overturned in 2023 by a lower court because it violated the Eighth Amendment's banning of cruel and unusual punishment. But then that overturning was overturned by the conservative leaning

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. So now it's back, like Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. And so this reinstated rule disqualifies nearly 10% of the state's voting age population, primarily black voters. And if you think it wasn't specifically designed to disenfranchise the black community,

one of the people who originally made the law when they were gathering in 1890 to specifically talk about voting rights said, quote, let's tell the truth if it bursts the bottom of the universe, we came here to exclude the Negro. Nothing short of this will answer. That is an actual quote from then Justice Solomon S. S. Calhoun, who is not a cartoon Confederate bullfrog I just made up, but an actual judge. And now, that explicitly, vocally racist law

has been reinstated. You can't pretend it exists for any other reason but to exclude black people. The bullfrog literally said it was. Laws around felons being able to vote have of course been particularly bogus, as the kids say, for a while now. Currently, only 23 states allow people to vote immediately after serving prison time. Also, in Maine and Vermont,

you never lose your right to vote for a conviction. Props to lobsters and cheese. And while there's been a push to restore these rights, there's of course been an equal push against it. Going back to Florida, how do we have to? In 2018, the state voted to restore the voting rights of the formerly incarcerated. But then Republicans hastily tacked on a law

requiring those returning citizens to pay off all of the fines and fees associated with their conviction before being qualified to vote. And while that's already a dick move, even if you think it's a fine and good idea, they also failed to create a system or database to determine or keep track of who owes what and how much. And so they essentially circumvented the will of the people

with a purposefully obtuse process that, for some, has made it impossible to buy back their vote. The judge ordered you to pay how much in restitution? $190,000. How much of that have you paid? I'm down to $180,000, so $10,000 of that. There is quite literally no way for that woman to ever afford to vote again, you know,

unless she was rich, which is exactly the point. Also the point, making the process as obtuse as possible so people simply don't know if they can vote. If you've ever, you know, paid taxes, you know exactly how hard it is to figure out what you owe the government or what payments have gone through. So can I vote? Possibly. I want to vote, but I don't want to break any laws. So to recap, the people of Florida voted to restore voting rights for the formerly incarcerated. And then the lawmakers bogged that down

with a bunch of hoops to jump through and also created no system for helping people navigate those hoops. And what happens if you accidentally try to vote with unpaid fines? Well, they fucking arrest you for voter fraud. So unfortunately, right now, we're gonna have to take you to jail. I'm like, voter fraud? I ain't voting, but I ain't committing no fraud. So unfortunately right now we're gonna have to take you to jail. I'm like voter fraud,

I ain't voting but I ain't committing no fraud. Well so that's the thing, I don't know exactly what happened with it but you do have a warrant. That is footage of visibly confused officers arresting people who have no idea what they did wrong. People who were, and this is true, they did wrong. People who were, and this is true, registered and given voter ID cards by the state. Like, it's rare to see cops act reluctant to arrest somebody, but no one in those videos knows what's happening

because these people were seemingly set up to fail. That's like entrapment, right? Not the sexy kind either. The state voted to say they could vote. They were given voter ID cards and registered. And then lawmakers added a single loophole so they could gather them up the moment they actually tried to vote.

That is beyond fucked. It's so post fucked, we can't even see what fucked looks like anymore. It's also clearly voter intimidation on top of that. And above all, it's designed to stop lower class and primarily black people from voting. This tactic is not all that different from a Jim Crow era cumulative poll tax

where you'd have to pay back taxes in order to vote. And it goes directly against the will of the people. Same thing happened in Nebraska when they passed a bill allowing newly released felons to vote, which was then blocked by the state's Republican attorney general. But at least those states are trying. In Alabama, lawmakers have actually expanded

their felon ban, passing a bill that added 120 new felonies that could revoke a person's right to vote. Fortunately, a judge ruled that it was too early for the bill to go into effect during this upcoming election, but it will turn these current voters into non-voters next time. My goodness, they just, they just hate voting. How odd, how very quite odd. And so here's a question. What is this all going to look like in November? Great question, Cody. You're very handsome and spry. So after the final break, which is now,

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Head to www.drinktrade.com slash more news to receive your first bag free. We are the backest we've ever been for this particular episode. We talked about how Republicans are making it harder for people to vote, especially poor or marginalized groups, while also injecting their own operatives

into the voting process at the local level. It seems that to them, the clearest path to victory is to obstruct democracy, which as I also pointed out, is odd, it sure is odd they don't want people to vote. And going back to the 2020 election, all of this has been hyper fueled by Donald Trump constantly crying foul while on the 2024 campaign trail, claiming that the only way Democrats would win this time

is if they cheat. And so come election day, it almost feels like the actual vote count won't matter so much as the litigation that will follow. Like the team with the best lawyers will win, I guess, which would be comforting if we were just dealing with Trump's lawyers. But unfortunately, the entire GOP is getting involved.

Thanks to the Trump-appointed RNC president, Republicans have a gaggle of lawyers ready to challenge any results they don't like. And in fact, they are already suing some states before the first ballot is cast. Both parties have begun to raise money for the inevitable litigation process that's sure to be thrilling and not at all demoralizing.

And so if I had to make a bold Nate Silver-esque prediction, I can't because I'm not sweaty enough, but it would be that, barring massive voter turnout and a win in the ballpark of a landslide, we will have no idea who won the election for a long fucking time, which is great because we love drawn out elections,

don't we? No matter how straightforward the results, if those results put Trump in the loser column, he's going to fight it. And that's the optimistic outcome, because there is a whole other timeline where, instead of the GOP pretending the election was stolen, the election actually gets stolen.

That's what we've been circling this entire time, right? Along with making it harder, goppers have been injecting MAGA loyalists into every step of the voting process, including the poll watching process. The RNC chair and the Trump team are in Tampa trying to energize voters. Technically it was billed as a training event for Election Day volunteers, speakers offering

keynotes on fair, accurate, secure, and transparent results, but press wasn't allowed to watch. I'm certainly not against poll watching or transparency in the voting process, which is why it's been a thing for a while, you know? But what Trump did was essentially push this idea that the current system was corrupt, causing most of his followers to believe him. And now they are all cramming themselves

into the poll watching process, promising to be good moral Hank Hills when we all know it's more of a Dale Gribble situation. Yes, it's funny to throw the whole rigged election stuff right back at them, but it's not wild or conspiratorial to question Republican poll watching ethics, as they have had a long history of voter intimidation.

Back in 1981, the RNC founded a group called the National Ballot Security Task Force, which made headlines after patrolling the gubernatorial New Jersey election with guns specifically harassing minority voters. 1981, folks, that is not that long ago. We had not won but two Star Wars is by then three. If you cut the holiday special, which we do a happy life day to you and all who celebrate.

Luckily, regarding whatever we were just talking about before I brought up Star Wars is, oh, the DNC sued the RNC for the racist gun intimidation stuff and something called a consent decree barred the GOP from creating any ballot security measures like that again. That decree, however, has since expired,

leaving many to wonder what kind of grand old bullshit the GOP might pull on election day. As an aside, it seems very fucked up that one of the two major parties had to be legally prevented from going around threatening voters with guns. Again, this all seems very broken. If you don't think this is going to come into play, GOP-led states have recently provided laws

that support these poll watchers with new and exciting powers, such as making it a crime for election officials to obstruct or interfere with a poll watchers actions or giving poll watchers the authority to go anywhere they want, including the actual tabulation centers. So what does this all look like on election day?

What are Trump and the GOP hoping for? Well, considering that a Republican hasn't won the popular vote since 2004, they're certainly not hoping for everyone to rock the vote, as we've shown. But rather, they're hoping that enough black and disenfranchised people simply won't bother enabling a bunch of close races

in key swing states. And thanks to all of them MAGA loyalists being injected into the process, they are probably hoping that poll watchers and election board officials will stall the process while Trump claims victory in the meantime, causing enough confusion and lawsuits and media attention seeking to push the election his way.

And in the worst timeline, Trump might not even have to be that tactful. If January 6th was any indication, he'll have no qualms with simply grabbing power and saying it was always his to begin with. And we especially know this since he has already gutted the entire RNC and replaced them with his own weirdo minions.

This includes Christina Bob, a former OANN news host and proud election denier, who is now the RNC's senior counsel for election integrity, which is a wild job position considering that Bob was indicted for plotting to use fake electors to steal the election in 2020. Despite doing that election fraud, she is still in charge of the RNC's election integrity.

Meaning that she, this lady in this mugshot that was taken because of her election crimes, is the one in charge of all of those poll watchers. That is so fucked that even some Republican strategists are worried that she'll go rogue and end up getting them banned again from poll watching. Which first of all, it's cute to think anything she does like that would be considered going rogue

as if that's not why she has the job. It's also such a, it's a quaint worry because I don't think Christina Bob or any of these MAGA loyalists care about hurting the Republican party for future elections because in their minds, this is either all or nothing. In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good you're not gonna have to vote.

As we've pointed out before, Trump either has to win the election or face jail time for his many dumb crimes. He's already joked about fleeing the country and has been very cagey about whether or not he will accept defeat. Even his running mate who knows Trump lost is too terrified to say he lost in 2020

lest he be, you know, hanged. Who won the 2020 election? Just answer, did Donald Trump win, yes or no? Yes, he did win. He is still saying he didn't lose the election. I would just ask that, did he lose the 2020 election? Tim, I'm focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their

mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation? That is a damning non-answer. Of course, Vance has also said that he wouldn't have certified the election, so we already know where he stands. Next to Trump, weirdly. There's two guys standing weird next to each other. Trump pretty much has nothing to lose, which is a wild trait for a presidential candidate to have.

The only thing he has to lose is the election. This is all to say that it's hard to predict how far he and his supporters will go to try and win. Maybe he'll be too tired, but this desperation is on top of all the standard, somehow expected ways the GOP will try to throw as many obstacles into the voting process, which is already a travesty.

Like it's so weird that one of the two viable political parties regularly and mundanely hinges their power on circumventing the voting process. Just like how they've stacked the Supreme Court to taint punch the will of the majority, it should chill us to the bone that they've gerrymandered and Jim Crowed their way into power. Because apparently that's the only way they see their ideas

as viable in a democracy. That is, as the kids say, chuds. Do kids say chuds? Like, yeah, that's totally chuds, my Grobos. I've heard that. Totally chuds, my Grobos? Yes, okay, perfect. Anyway, I guess vote.

That's literally all we can do, at least right now, I guess. Vote, vote and get people to vote. But I guess don't influence someone you knows vote or then you can't vote, whatever. I mean, we should probably get rid of the electoral college and perhaps push for sweeping reforms and rank choice voting and all that.

We should also probably think hard about why the GOP's entire strategy is to stop us from voting. But right now, the only way we can maybe fight back from all the election obstruction is to make the results overwhelming. So that the results of the next election can't possibly be denied or litigated or gopped up.

Vote, even if you're in a blue state, just vote. Vote, vote like hell. Be really cool while you vote. Down ballot too. Really blacken in the circles with your pen or yank the ballot crank with a vengeance or push that voting machine button with two fingers. Hell, make it three fingers.

Vote as much as you can. Vote twice. Use the names of dead people. That's not illegal, right? Right. Voting a few times right now. Ten votes for South Park. Oh wait no I went to Bernie. 10 votes for South Park. Oh, no, I went to right in Bernie. Damn it.

What's up, you pieces of pie, sweet, sweet pie. Hi, everybody, my sweet, sweet pieces of pie. Thanks for watching. Make sure to like and subscribe. It would really help us out. Leave a comment if you want to or if you don't want to. You don't have to. We've got a Patreon.com

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We got merch there you can get. Look at this. It's art with warmbo popping out. Oh, God, it's so disgusting. Look at that. Oh, my gosh. Here's Katie being really, really mean to me and making me eat eggs. And here is our sweet, sweet champion. Oh my gosh, look at him. Oh, he's gonna be the president one day.

Landslide victory for this little fella. They know. They're honking if they love warmbo. Honk if you love warmbo. Mwaaah!