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