Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. Hi. I'm Peabody Award wanting
Speaker 1: investigative journalist Daisylidik. Elections. They're the bedrock of democracy and
Speaker 1: the only thing preventing us from not having elections. But
Speaker 1: is America's election system reliable or we one glitchy voting
Speaker 1: machine away from a total collapse. I'll investigate in our
Speaker 1: new segment. Vote demic are crumbling election infrastructure. After our
Speaker 1: nation's last elections went super smooth, dozens of voters were
Speaker 1: locked out of the one single polling place for all
Speaker 1: of Louisville. Reports of hours of long lines, voting machine malfunctions,
Speaker 1: provisional ballot shortages. Officials are looking at calling in the
Speaker 1: National Guard. I wanted to find out how ready we
Speaker 1: are for the mid terms, so I'm headed to our
Speaker 1: nation's capital to talk with election advocates at the Democracy Fund.
Speaker 1: My name is Tammy Patrick. I'm a senior advice sor
Speaker 1: to the elections team at the Democracy Fund, which seeks
Speaker 1: to ensure that we have an open and just democracy
Speaker 1: that is inclusive and trustworthy for all of our citizens.
Speaker 1: Sounds like you got your work cut out for you.
Speaker 1: We do in this moment. There's a lot of work
Speaker 1: to be done, but it may not be in the
Speaker 1: areas that necessarily think it is. All right, what are
Speaker 1: all the problems for this upcoming election? So we continue
Speaker 1: to see a shortage of poll workers, the global supply
Speaker 1: chain issues, underfunding of our election infrastructure. Tammy, tammy, tammy.
Speaker 1: Let's let's start with the most pressing issue. Well, one
Speaker 1: of the most pressing issues that at this moment, because
Speaker 1: of where we are in the election cycle, is a
Speaker 1: paper shortage. Paper paper, tammy. It's two who is using
Speaker 1: paper to vote? So the vast majority of Americans actually
Speaker 1: cast a paper ballot. Yeah, no, I knew that. I
Speaker 1: vote every election. I got the stickers to prove it. Well,
Speaker 1: that's great, But election offices all around this country have
Speaker 1: ordered their ballots, they've ordered envelopes, they've ordered paper materials
Speaker 1: that they need, and they may not get them in
Speaker 1: time for the upcoming election. Who's going to be affected
Speaker 1: by this paper shortage? Most, what it looks like is
Speaker 1: going to happen will be those small election offices serving
Speaker 1: rural communities where they don't have a large service provider
Speaker 1: that's helping them take care of this issue. Are you
Speaker 1: saying that the rural community and my rural rural? Am
Speaker 1: I saying that right? Rural? The rural. Okay, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. As I learned about this large swath
Speaker 1: of Americans rural, very rural, I realized this paper shortage
Speaker 1: could affect a lot of people. Well, I guess I
Speaker 1: gotta go find some paper people. Oh wait, there's more
Speaker 1: to talk about, can it? Tammy being in America just
Speaker 1: sneaks in printer paper home from work like the rest
Speaker 1: of us. I would to run back Election Services, one
Speaker 1: of the largest ballot printing facilities, to get an inside
Speaker 1: look at how dire the paper shortage is. We print
Speaker 1: ballots for several states and counties across the nation. We're
Speaker 1: in twenty three states plus Washington, d C. With some
Speaker 1: some of our products. Wow, so you're a huge part
Speaker 1: of the voting process. Yeah, we touch roughly the voters
Speaker 1: around the country. Touch a lot of voters, but with
Speaker 1: consent absolutely. So what's going on with this paper shortage?
Speaker 1: Started during COVID when the paper mills shut down. They
Speaker 1: couldn't generate more paper, so they sold through all their inventory,
Speaker 1: and then when they started going back to work, they
Speaker 1: converted to liner board for cardboard boxes. Right, Amazon still
Speaker 1: needs to ship things bazos Man, and now we don't
Speaker 1: have the inventory any longer, and so they're trying to
Speaker 1: play catch up. And you're saying, there's a paper shortage
Speaker 1: happening right now. Jeff, I don't know how to tell
Speaker 1: you this, but I see a ton of paper around here.
Speaker 1: So what you see here on our production floor is
Speaker 1: a fraction of what we need for the whole year.
Speaker 1: Every day we'll go through sixty five of those roles.
Speaker 1: Of these roles, Jesus Christ. Historically, we could order paper
Speaker 1: and in two to three weeks we would have what
Speaker 1: we need. Now it's three to four months or more.
Speaker 1: And that's been the problem this year. How bad are
Speaker 1: we talking like we might need to start printing double
Speaker 1: sided bad or the majority of Americans won't get to
Speaker 1: choose their president bad. Let's hope it doesn't get to that.
Speaker 1: Everybody is working to avoid that very problem. But we
Speaker 1: already do print double sided balance, So there is we
Speaker 1: already print on both sides of the paper. Jeff, that
Speaker 1: means it's bad. Kind of walk me through everything that
Speaker 1: would be affected if the election community runs out of paper.
Speaker 1: If there's no paper, it's hard to mail balance envelopes.
Speaker 1: I voted, stickers and instructures, voting stickers. Voting stickers could
Speaker 1: be gone, could be but the stickers the best part
Speaker 1: of voting, the only reason. And I vote. Could also
Speaker 1: do digital stickers instead of getting the physical sticker, you
Speaker 1: get a digital sticker when you vote. Jeff, that's the
Speaker 1: dumbest thing I've ever heard. Fair enough, Okay, I just
Speaker 1: have a few more questions. You know it's good, m m. Yes.
Speaker 1: What can Americans do to help with the paper shortage? Um?
Speaker 1: Stop wasting paper? Yes? Cursive? Why am I writing in cursive?
Speaker 1: Stop staying paper? Yeah? All right, you wanna take me
Speaker 1: on a tour. I'm ready to go to work. All right,
Speaker 1: let's go. You're gonna wear a hard hat. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what you do. Right now, it was time to roll
Speaker 1: up my sleeve so I didn't get ink on them.
Speaker 1: Ross this paper palace was pumping. And it turns out
Speaker 1: there's a lot more to printing than just hitting control
Speaker 1: p So this is where it all starts. We get
Speaker 1: the files from the county, the pds, so we can
Speaker 1: start the print process. Let me ask you a question.
Speaker 1: Does PDF really Standford? Please don't know. I could see
Speaker 1: how crucial paper was to this process. So every roll
Speaker 1: of paper will generate about a thousand ballots. Where we're
Speaker 1: running in an election, we'll be running twenty four hours
Speaker 1: a day, seven days a week. Ease runs twenty four
Speaker 1: hours a day. Wait, what's happening? This machine just ran
Speaker 1: out of paper? Happening already. I even presented Jeff In
Speaker 1: some of my own solutions to stopping a shortage. So
Speaker 1: this is the inserter. This where the ballots, the I
Speaker 1: voted sticker, the instructions all going to the envelope to
Speaker 1: be nailed out of the voter. Say the stickers I
Speaker 1: voted stickers? Yes, these ones right here? Yes. Well, So
Speaker 1: even if a paper shortage does ruin America's democracy, at
Speaker 1: least I'll be able to participate in the most important
Speaker 1: part of the voting process. The Daily Show with Trevor
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