‘Nathan For You’ Star Warns That The Emmy Voting System Can Be Hacked

Comedy Central’s Nathan Fielder, the co-creator and star of the network’s Nathan For You, has taken a different path from the typical Emmy campaign videos. Instead, he has tapped a professor and election security expert from Copenhagen to show how easily the Emmy voting system can be hacked.

In the somewhat somber video, a largely playing-it-straight Fielder confesses that he’s favored for an Emmy, but is worried that the voting system may be hacked and deprive him of a win. So he employs a hacking expert, Denmark’s Carsten Schürmann, who shows him a way that the official web site for voting can be spoofed. By buying an  email list of Emmy voters, the hacker is counting on a certain number logging in and providing credentials, which can be, in turn, used in the official tally to tilt the results.

While the video cautions that such tactics are illegal and should not be done, it does point out that no system is foolproof against hacking. Similar hacks have been done in online fundraising, depriving businesses of investments and defrauding backers.

A source indicated that financial giant Ernst & Young, which handles the Emmy voting, was invited to participate in the video, but declined.

The latest stunt is just the latest in the Comedy Central star’s business challenging oeuvre, in which he portrays a business advisor who implements strange strategies, as in creating a coffee shop called Dumb Starbucks, inventing a poo-flavored yogurt, or challenging Best Buy’s price guarantees by selling TVs for $1.