John Oliver Compares India’s Voting Rights to Texas’ Voter Suppression

CNN’s Fareed Zakaria joined John Oliver on Last Week Tonight Sunday to discuss the significance of India’s election. But while they only had about four minutes to talk during the broadcast, Oliver pulled a Jon Stewart and threw another 12 minutes up on the web. During the extended conversation, Oliver and Zakaria tried to square how India could get more than half a billion people to the polls while parts of the U.S. seem to be doing whatever they can to prevent citizens from voting.

“Everything about the election was fascinating to me,” Oliver told Zakaria, noting that the country had 814 million voters with a mandated polling station no more than two kilometers from where people are living.

“And the results were tabulated — because it was all done electronically — faster and more authoritatively than the elections here,” Zakaria said. “No hanging chads, no butterfly ballots.”

“Exactly,” Oliver replied. “And in terms of fighting for access for people, it’s an antithesis — you look at the voting rights laws that are going on here. [India’s] putting polling stations on the side of mountains. In Texas, they would be proposing laws building mountains between the voters and the polls.”

To Oliver’s delight, Zakaria gave the British credit for having some impact on India’s “traditional of parliamentary democracy.”

Watch the extended interview below, via HBO (relevant section begins at 9:00):

[Photo via Eric Liebowitz/HBO]

— —

>> Follow Matt Wilstein (@TheMattWilstein) on Twitter

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!