John Oliver's campaign for puking mullet bird delays New Zealand vote for favorite feathered friend
John Oliver's campaign for puking mullet bird delays New Zealand vote for favorite feathered friend
Vote checkers in New Zealand have been so overwhelmed by foreign interference that they’ve been forced to delay announcing a winner. The contest is to choose the nation’s favorite bird and the interference is from comedian John Oliver.
Oliver discovered a loophole in the rules, which allowed anybody with a valid email address to cast a vote. “After all, this is what democracy is all about,” Oliver said on his show. “America interfering in foreign elections.”
Forest and Bird said vote checkers had been forced to take an extra two days to verify the hundreds of thousands of votes that had poured in by Sunday’s deadline. They now plan to announce a winner on Wednesday.
The contest has survived previous controversies. Election scrutineers in 2020 discovered about 1,500 fraudulent votes for the little spotted kiwi. And two years ago, the contest was won by a bat, which was allowed because it was considered part of the bird family by Indigenous Māori.
Usually billed Bird of the Year, the annual event by conservation group Forest and Bird is held to raise awareness about the plight of the nation’s native birds, some of which have been driven to extinction. This year, the contest was named Bird of the Century to mark the group’s centennial.
The top result is already out. Obviously the John Oliver fans got their wish and Pūteketeke won. Thousands of them had to be disqualified for cheating, though.
We are all waiting now to see who is in second. Fingers crossed for the Fairy Tern, New Zealand's most endangered bird!
I admit to voting for this bird, lol.
Woah scrutineer is a word. I've always been a fan of the central scrutinizer.
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Oliver discovered a loophole in the rules, which allowed anybody with a valid email address to cast a vote.
Despite nearly nine of every ten New Zealanders now living in towns or cities, she added, many retain a deep love of nature.
And two years ago, the contest was won by a bat, which was allowed because it was considered part of the bird family by Indigenous Māori.
Oliver described pūteketeke, which number less than 1,000 in New Zealand and are also known as the Australasian crested grebe, as “weird, puking birds with colorful mullets.”
“They have a mating dance where they both grab a clump of wet grass and chest bump each other before standing around unsure of what to do next,” Oliver said on his show, adding that he’d never identified more with anything in his life.
One group put up billboards reading: “Dear John, don’t disrupt the pecking order,” while others urged people to vote for the national bird, the kiwi.
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