WELLINGTON, New Zealand — 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.
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.
Oliver discovered a loophole in the rules, which allowed anybody with a valid email address to cast a vote. So he went all-out in a humorous campaign for his favored bird, the pūteketeke, a water bird, on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight.”
Oliver had a billboard erected for “The Lord of the Wings” in New Zealand’s capital, Wellington. He also put up billboards in Paris, Tokyo, London, and Mumbai, India. He had a plane with a banner fly over Ipanema Beach in Brazil. And he wore an oversized bird costume on Jimmy Fallon’s “The Tonight Show.”
“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.
This 2022 photo supplied by the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society shows a puteketeke and its chick at Lake Ellesmere, south of Christchurch, New Zealand. Vote count for New Zealand’s Bird of the Century has been delayed by comedian John Oliver’s global campaign, as he discovered a loophole in the rules, which allowed anybody with a valid email address to cast a vote. So he went all-out in a humorous campaign for his favored bird, the puteketeke, a water bird, on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight.” Credit: AP/Peter Foulds
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