[RADIOLAB INTRO]

ROBERT KRULWICH: Okay, so how are we gonna start this?

LATIF NASSER: Well, I—I think we should start with ...

ROBERT: Wait, wait, wait. First of all, I'm Robert Krulwich. This is Radiolab. And today we're going to start with our producer Latif Nasser. Now. Now you.

LATIF: Okay. Let me take you to the biggest democracy on the planet.

S.Y. QURAISHI: Yeah, they did. You know, in fact we have more voters than any continent.

LATIF: India.

ROBERT: Ah!

LATIF: Over 800 million voters.

S.Y. QURAISHI: We have 90 countries rolled into one.

ROBERT: Whew!

LATIF: And from 2010 to 2012, this guy, S.Y. Quraishi ...

S.Y. QURAISHI: Yes, S.Y. Quraishi.

LATIF: ... was in charge of the whole thing.

S.Y. QURAISHI: I was the chief Election Commissioner of India from 2010 to '12. And before that, election commissioner for four years.

LATIF: And Quraishi told me something that just astonished me. They have this crazy rule.

S.Y. QURAISHI: So our principle is that we would like polling stations to be within walking distance. Maximum two kilometers.

LATIF: So not a single of the 800-million-plus voters has to travel more than a mile in a bit to get to a polling station. So no matter where you are in that giant country that is India.

ROBERT: [laughs] This is true?

LATIF: Yes.

S.Y. QURAISHI: We have polling stations in the deep forest and in the mountains where it will take three days to walk. There is no other way you can reach there. So we use helicopters. We also send our polling party on camels or elephants or mules or bicycles and motorcycles and boats. Whatever it takes.

LATIF: Which brings us to the Gir Forest.

S.Y. QURAISHI: We have a polling station in the Gir Forest in Gujarat only for one voter.

LATIF: So in Gujarat, there is a forest. And there is a temple priest who lives inside a temple deep, deep in this forest.

ROBERT: By himself.

LATIF: Yeah. And so, what Quraishi would do, is every election he'd send a team into that forest, which by the way, is the home to the Asiatic lion.

ROBERT: Oh!

LATIF: And there are regular reports of lions actually attacking people. And basically these guys trek 12-and-a-half miles into the forest, dragging along with them this voting machine until they get to this—like, it's like a little forest outpost. They get there, they sleep overnight, and then early the next morning set up the polling station, and then they wait. They just wait for this guy.

S.Y. QURAISHI: They wait for him to come and vote.

LATIF: And there's actually a video on YouTube of this guy emerging from the forest to vote. His name is Mahant Bharatdas Darshandas. He's wearing traditional clothes. You know, this long sarong-y type skirt. So he walks into this little station, fills out his ballot, gets his finger painted with a little red dot, right? That's to make sure he doesn't vote twice. Which would be a little hard to pull off in this situation. But anyway, he fills out his ballot and then his vote gets counted.

LATIF: This could be the most effort ever put into making a single person able to cast a vote.

ROBERT: And this is done again because no voting Indian should be denied a place to vote at a convenient location.

LATIF: That's right.

ROBERT: Not a one.

LATIF: That's right. It's a—it's a kind of beautifully noble idea.

S.Y. QURAISHI: Some people say that why do you have polling? Why do you waste money for one voter? Because our principle is that every single vote counts.

LATIF: But it's not like that guy's vote actually, you know, made a difference.

ROBERT: Of course it made—every—this is a beautiful thing to have a vote.

LATIF: Yeah, I mean it's a beautiful thing in—in principle, but it's not ...

ROBERT: Well principles matter.

LATIF: But it's not like one vote actually is ever decisive. Like, one vote never really makes all the difference.

ROBERT: I mean, you want one vote changes the world kind of thing?

LATIF: Yeah, yeah, yeah. If not for that one vote, things would be different.

ROBERT: Oh.

LATIF: So I decided to dig around.

ROBERT: Yes?

LATIF: And this is the first thing I came across: November, 1996, the day before the Clinton-Dole presidential election.

ROBERT: Okay.

LATIF: Ann Landers ...

ROBERT: Chicago columnist.

LATIF: ... writes in her column, "Dear readers, tomorrow is election day. If you don't bother to vote, you have no right to complain about who gets elected. The essay that follows was sent in by a reader in Missouri." So here we go.

ROBERT: So we're gonna read Ann Landers' mail in a sense.

LATIF: Basically.

ROBERT: Okay.

LATIF: We're not gonna read the whole thing because it's too long, but this is most of it.

ROBERT: Okay, yeah.

LATIF: "How important is one vote? In 1645, one vote gave Oliver Cromwell control of England. In 1649, one vote caused Charles I of England to be executed."

ROBERT: Oh my God! Okay.

LATIF: "In 1776, one vote gave America the English language instead of German."

ROBERT: Really? Really?

LATIF: We'd be speaking German right now, the two of us.

ROBERT: Gut.

LATIF: "One vote brought Texas into the Union. One vote saved President Andrew Johnson from impeachment."

ROBERT: Oh, I've heard of that one.

LATIF: "One vote changed France from a monarchy to a republic. One vote gave Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency."

ROBERT: Impressive.

LATIF: Now it gets a little darker.

ROBERT: [laughs] Not exactly sun shining right here.

LATIF: "In 1923, one vote gave Hitler leadership of the Nazi party."

ROBERT: Oh! Ay yi yi.

LATIF: Now this is a pretty incredible list.

ROBERT: And in each case, had the vote been missing the result would be different.

LATIF: Right. History would be different.

ROBERT: I think it's a wonderful place to begin. Anyone who's thinking of not voting should consider this list with care.

LATIF: With meticulous care. And once they go out and they research and they read their history, they will find that this list is totally bogus.

ROBERT: Totally bogus?

LATIF: Exaggerated, mischaracterized.

ROBERT: Everything you just said ...

LATIF: Fraudulent!

ROBERT: Well, could we go back over them? Go back over them just briefly.

LATIF: All right. 1645, one vote gave Cromwell control of England. I emailed several historians. One of them wrote to me that this was quote "Absurd." There was a vote in 1645. Cromwell was made Lieutenant General of the Cavalry, but no one knows the margin of that vote.

ROBERT: [laughs] Okay. Do the next one then.

LATIF: One vote caused Charles I to be executed. According to another historian, "Complete nonsense."

ROBERT: 0 for 2. What's the next one?

LATIF: One vote gave America the English language instead of German.

ROBERT: Yeah, I'd never heard of that.

LATIF: There was a vote to translate the laws, and then they decided yeah, no. Maybe it's better not to do that. One vote brought Texas into the Union. In the Senate, the vote was 27 to 25. Two votes.

ROBERT: Two votes. [laughs]

LATIF: Not one vote, two votes. And that wasn't even the decisive vote.

ROBERT: The next one?

LATIF: One vote saved President Andrew Johnson from impeachment.

ROBERT: See, I thought that was true.

LATIF: The guy who made that vote was bribed. The vote—he was bought. That vote was bought.

ROBERT: Right. Moving on then.

LATIF: Right. One vote changed France from a monarchy to a republic.

ROBERT: Impressive!

LATIF: But you conveniently omit the fact that there were three revolutions in the prior 80 years.

ROBERT: [laughs]

LATIF: One vote gave Rutherford Hayes the presidency. So this is true-ish. I mean, it was a disputed election, so it went to this special committee. And he did win there by one vote, but it was more like politicking than actually, like, voting.

ROBERT: Hmm.

LATIF: And last, one vote gave Adolf Hitler leadership of the Nazi party.

ROBERT: Oh, yeah.

LATIF: In that case, the vote was actually 553 to 1.

ROBERT: [gasps] So he got this exactly wrong.

LATIF: Exactly wrong.

ROBERT: And so that concludes our lesson in journalism today.

LATIF: [laughs]

ROBERT: When receiving letters from total strangers, do not always assume that they know what they're writing about.

LATIF: So but it's—like, it's more than just a journalistic correction, it's like this instantiation of everything, you believe about the society that you live in. That somehow your voice, however little, it—it's important, and it's valued. And for this all to be wrong, it's sort of devastating. You know, and then you go on to ...

ROBERT: This does not make me feel for even a second ...

LATIF: That your vote is not valuable?

ROBERT: That's right.

LATIF: I don't know. It makes me want to put my money where my mouth is, and it's like fine, you think one vote matters? Prove it. Make your own fact-checked list where you can prove that this is not an idealistic pipe dream, this is a real thing.

ROBERT: So are you about to present us with an absolutely solid story ...

LATIF: Rock solid.

ROBERT: ... where one vote matters?

LATIF: If Ann Landers did her homework, these are the stories that she would bring you. And—and they are going to—they are gonna inspire you if I have anything to say about it.

ROBERT: Okay.

LATIF: So are you ready?

ROBERT: I am ready.

LATIF: All right, let's go.

ROBERT: All right, so here are two—count them, two—rock-solid, your-vote-does-really-count tales. The first one, actually I wasn't quite expecting this, although it definitely reflects our national mood in a very vivid way. And it comes to us from our reporter ...

LATIF: Simon Adler.

SIMON ADLER: That's me.

ROBERT: He's got us a tale.

SIMON: I do.

ROBERT: It's an American tale. How would you describe it?

SIMON: I think it's one of those classic us versus them tales.

ROBERT: Or actually maybe it's an us versus us story in its way.

SIMON: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, actually, I like that more because in fact it takes place right in America's heartland.

ROBERT: Where in the heartland?

SIMON: Nebraska.

MATTHEW HANSEN: Seneca, Nebraska. This tiny little town in central-west Nebraska.

SIMON: Okay.

MATTHEW HANSEN: It's near the town of Mullen, Nebraska, which you—you know, obviously also don't know.

SIMON: Yeah, that doesn't help me at all.

SIMON: So this is Matthew Hansen. He is a reporter with the—with the Omaha World-Herald.

MATTHEW HANSEN: So I got an email from a woman who lives a couple miles outside of town. She was really upset.

SIMON: Because back in 2014, the town was split in half. And in fact, there was a group of people in the town who were ...

MATTHEW HANSEN: Circulating a petition. A petition that would end the town.

SIMON: Wait. Circulate a petition to end the town?

MATTHEW HANSEN: Yeah.

ROBERT: They didn't want to be a town anymore?

SIMON: Right.

ROBERT: Really?

SIMON: Yeah.

MATTHEW HANSEN: You know, by law if you have enough signatures on a petition you can get things on the ballot.

SIMON: And the question that ended up on the ballot was, "Should Seneca ...

MATTHEW HANSEN: Cease to exist?

ROBERT: And it occurred to us that maybe, just maybe this tiny little town in the middle of Nebraska might have something to say about the rest of us.

SIMON: Well, and let's back up there.

MATTHEW HANSEN: Sure.

SIMON: So when—when did—all was well in Seneca until what?

MATTHEW HANSEN: It started with the horses.

SIMON: The horses. Okay, what—what are these horses?

MATTHEW HANSEN: There were—there were six horses. Actually, let me step back. There were a lot of horses in Seneca. Most people in Seneca ride horses, many own them, but there were these six particular horses right in the middle of town. And, you know, the split sort of started right there.

SIMON: So I got so curious about what went down in Seneca that I flew to Denver ...

SIMON: One, two, three, four, five.

SIMON: ... drove five and a half hours into the Sandhills of west-central Nebraska.

SIMON: Let's see if we can get anything on the radio here.

SIMON: These rolling sand dunes covered in grass that they ranch cattle on.

SIMON: There's another ranch. What's this one say?

SIMON: And smack dab in the middle of the Sandhills is Seneca.

SIMON: After many hours and many miles we are here. Okay, so we got these rolling hills that are green, dotted with these yellow flowers. "Junction 86A, Seneca." Okay, we've got kind of an old bigger red sign that says, "Welcome Seneca" with a big red line. Okay.

MATTHEW HANSEN: When you get there, it looks like ...

SIMON: ... starting to drive through town.

MATTHEW HANSEN: A picture postcard small town from yesteryear, bound by railroad tracks.

SIMON: To our right we've got the railroad. I'm taking a left.

MATTHEW HANSEN: I mean, really pretty.

SIMON: To my right, an abandoned house. To my left, another boarded-up house. Another street with absolutely nothing on it. An old gas station. It's all boarded up. Another run-down house that says "No Trespassing."

MATTHEW HANSEN: And just really tiny. I think one end to the other is one-eighth of a mile.

SIMON: And we're done. So there you go: at 30 miles per hour, it takes 10 seconds. Okay, turning around and wow! Okay, the house to the left here has a giant board over one of the windows and spray painted on it is "Sandy H. is a big fat liar." Interesting.

SIMON: And so I ended up just walking through this tiny town of Seneca.

ROBERT: You're, like, knocking every—on every door type thing?

SIMON: I think I may have knocked on every single door in the town.

ROBERT: Oh, man!

SIMON: Yeah. And of course, I ended up talking to some folks who wanted to end the town.

ROBERT: Uh-huh.

SIMON: Others who wanted to save it.

ROBERT: And?

SIMON: And first up, Judith Brown's house.

SIMON: She told—her notes to me were "Come down hill. First house is nice. That's not me. Burnt-up yard." I don't know if this is it. How are you this morning?

JUDITH BROWN: Well, now that it's morning and now you're here. And New York City and how do you do?

SIMON: Good. Very good to meet you.

JUDITH BROWN: Everyone told me I can't let you into my house, but I don't have any other way to cope with it.

SIMON: I'm not worried about it.

JUDITH BROWN: And you want to plug in, huh?

SIMON: No, I'm good. I'm all set here.

JUDITH BROWN: Oh good. Tell me who else you're gonna talk to.

SIMON: Larry Isom?

JUDITH BROWN: Oh! Okay, who else? [laughs]

SIMON: And Jackie Sevier.

JUDITH BROWN: Okay. I'm the sanest person you're gonna talk to today. [laughs] Just so you know that's what I think. What a terrible thing to say! I'm sorry about the cigarettes.

SIMON: No, don't worry. I want to get into more contemporary things but real quickly to set the stage, when did Seneca pop up on the map?

JUDITH BROWN: Well, all I know is when I was a little kid, it was a booming town.

SIMON: What would you do?

JUDITH BROWN: Well, I mean they had great dances and wonderful bands and beer. And there was no place else to go. I mean, Seneca used to be really, really fun. But okay, so let me tell you this story. Some people had come and they bought a house in Seneca. Okay, this would have been fine except they have all these animals. Nobody knows these people. And there is a big fuss about them and their abuse of these animals. They're sure these animals are being abused.

SIMON: See, I was under the impression that this was all about horses in a front yard. Is that true?

JUDITH BROWN: They had horses. They had six horses in their backyard.

LARRY ISOM: That's the yard.

SIMON: So we're talking, like, six horses in the size of a one-car garage?

LARRY ISOM: Exactly.

SIMON: Do you remember the first time you saw the horses here?

LARRY ISOM: Saw them or smelled them? Yeah. Both at the same time.

SIMON: Larry Isom, former member of the town board.

LARRY ISOM: I mean, it's pretty hard to miss when you drive down the street when there's six blocks to the town, you know? That's—it's easy to hear about things.

SIMON: And how did you decide that you were gonna take this up as a cause as a member of the town board?

LARRY ISOM: Because of the complaints that were called to my house. "What are you going to do about the horses? They're—they're up to their knees in excrement. What are you gonna do about it?

SIMON: And so you pass—you wrote an ordinance, or ...?

LARRY ISOM: Yeah.

SIMON: And what did the ordinance say?

LARRY ISOM: I don't remember. It was two pages. But—but in any case, it stipulated a certain amount of square footage per horse as well as shelter.

JUDITH BROWN: Well, that was part of it. The thing about Seneca is there's always a war in Seneca.

SIMON: Again, Judith Brown.

JUDITH BROWN: Okay, six horses in the front yard, were the most concrete thing, but Larry Isom and the bats you're gonna go see, they have always wanted us to look more like a cute little Colorado tourist town.

SIMON: Wait, are we talking, like, beautification? Like ...

JUDITH BROWN: Yes. Yes. They wanted to create rules to create growth, and I think they wanted to keep us lower-class people in line. And so they were out here telling us what to do. And—oh, they'll tell you things about me.

JACKIE SEVIER: Judith? She did the '60s in New York. She even lived in a commune for a time until it rained out.

SIMON: The Save Seneca Three. Larry Isom again.

LARRY ISOM: No, you go.

SIMON: Nancy Isom, his wife. And here, Jackie Sevier.

JACKIE SEVIER: So we don't want to defend. We don't want to bicker. We don't want to open that up.

LARRY ISOM: The ordinances were necessary because of the situation that we were presented with. There was no elitism.

JACKIE SEVIER: They weren't on that board to dictate to anybody in this town. They needed covenants for the horses, that's where you started. And then you had people that was trying to say "You're not gonna tell me." And if you look around the little town, you'll see the ones that take pride in what they have. I'm sorry.

NANCY ISOM: And rigging that to the debate. Mm-hmm.

JUDITH BROWN: So the town was split in two. I mean, we could have liked each other, but we've had nothing but constant, constant fighting.

SIMON: Hello.

MILLIE: Hi. Okay, she won't hurt you.

SIMON: What's the dog's name is?

MILLIE: Presley.

SIMON: Presley. I'm Simon.

SIMON: Millie.

MILLIE: Come on in.

SIMON: Also wanted to save the town. Asked her last name not be used.

MILLIE: This is exciting. I mean, I've heard so much about you, and I want to ...

SIMON: I have to ask, where did you hear about me? From who?

MILLIE: Oh, Lord. This is a small town. I mean, it just—all over. [laughs]

SIMON: The telephones are ringing with my name?

MILLIE: [laughs] Pretty much. Okay. I gotta be nice, right? You're recording all this?

SIMON: I'm recording. You don't have to be nice, though. You can be honest.

MILLIE: Oh, I'll be honest. I have no use for those people. I didn't want them to take our town.

SIMON: How long have you lived in Seneca?

MILLIE: Oh gosh, about 36, 37 years now.

SIMON: And how many people live here these days?

MILLIE: Right in town, maybe I don't know if even 20 do. Yeah. And we get talked about a lot. I mean, we get talked—put down a lot, like "What are you?"

[phone rings]

MILLIE: Excuse me. Hi, honey. I can't talk now. Listen, Simon's here! Do you have anything you want me to ask him? Okay, bye now. She and I have been playing phone tag all day long.

SIMON: Okay, so you were saying that people were making fun of Seneca?

MILLIE: Well, they do. They make fun of Seneca quite a bit, the outside, you know like, "Oh, Seneca doesn't have anything. What are you still doing here?" And it's not like it used to be. I mean, years and years ago, this used to be at the neatest little town you'd ever want to live in, and then it just—I don't know. It just went downhill.

SANDY HANSEN: The town is dying. I mean, that's—that's the only way you can say it.

SIMON: Sandy Hansen. Wanted to save the town. Unofficial town historian.

SANDY HANSEN: This started back in '73, I believe it was, when it stopped being a division point. So the trains no longer stopped here. So that did away with the three hotels, the 24-hour cafe. The man that had the filling station pulled out in front of a semi at Mullen. That ended that business. His brother had the shoe shop, and he died of a heart attack sitting there working on his shoes. The lady that had the variety store tripped on a kitten, and broke her hip. That closed that. And ...

[train horn sounds]

SIMON: Do you mind if we just wait until the train goes by?

SANDY HANSEN: Nope. Anyhow, Seneca really starts dying.

MILLIE: Presley, get away from there.

SIMON: Okay. Well, so I guess I'm here because I'm trying to talk to as many people as I can to understand what happened with the whole vote on unincorporate.

SIMON: Again, saver Millie.

MILLIE: It started out that there was six horses. They were up in mud up to their probably belly, and I think one of them had to be put down because it was kicked. This is how close they were together. Anyway, I mean, I'm an animal lover. I wanted something done about it. Several of us did. So we had a meeting.

NANCY ISOM: We—the board tried to tell them that's not sanitary.

SIMON: Nancy Isom and the rest of the Save Seneca Three.

LARRY ISOM: We did discuss it. You know, we're going to get the horses gone. That's the purpose of the ordinance.

JUDITH BROWN: But it was not just that.

SIMON: Judith Brown, ender.

JUDITH BROWN: They wanted to get rid of all the horses, all the cattle, all the chickens.

LARRY ISOM: That is ridiculous.

NANCY ISOM: Have your chickens. But do you flaunt your chickens? Do they run around town?

MILLIE: People are so afraid that their animals were gonna be taken away from them.

JUDITH BROWN: And then eventually the board members forbid people to have animals. That was the gist of it. And so more and more and more the town got split.

MILLIE: There's a group of people here and a group of people here. Nobody gets along.

JUDITH BROWN: Nobody on the town board would speak to anybody, which, of course, then that just meant I'd just yell at them louder.

MILLIE: There's certain people that I just give hand gestures.

SIMON: A one-fingered hand gesture?

MILLIE: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. [laughs]

JUDITH BROWN: People said things like, "My dog doesn't want to be friends with your dog." It was awful.

SIMON: Are you Terri by chance?

TERRI HARTMAN: Yeah.

SIMON: Can I have 20 minutes of your time to talk?

SIMON: Terri Hartman, who wanted to end the town.

TERRI HARTMAN: Yeah, this just got ugly. They started taking pictures of people's places and put it on Facebook and say how they didn't clean up their property. And just public shaming people.

SIMON: This was the Save Seneca people that were posting this?

TERRI HARTMAN: Supposedly.

LARRY ISOM: You know, there were aggressive comments.

NANCY ISOM: We did have the sheriff come up. Did anyone tell you that?

TERRI HARTMAN: It was just out of control?

JUDITH BROWN: I mean, what about a Xanax, you know? I took a lot of them during those years. It was a very unhappy time. And so finally, people started going around with a petition to get the unincorporation on the ballot. We thought we will just unincorporate.

LARRY ISOM: Unincorporate.

JUDITH BROWN: Unincorporate.

NANCY ISOM: Unincorporate our village.

MILLIE: Unincorporate.

LARRY ISOM: There are agitators in every group.

JUDITH BROWN: [laughs] Okay. That's me.

SIMON: That seems kind of like the nuclear option here, right? Like, we're just gonna blow the whole thing up.

JUDITH BROWN: Oh yes, absolutely.

MATTHEW HANSEN: I think that sense of shared community was just slowly dissolving year by year.

SIMON: Again, Matthew Hansen of the Omaha World-Herald.

MATTHEW HANSEN: And it didn't have it—had probably to do with what was happening in Seneca, but I also believe that it had to do with what was happening in the United States. Sort of the idea that winning the argument is more important than the much harder job of coming together and saying, "Okay, we disagree on this. Let's find a solution to our problem."

ROBERT: I'm having a little trouble figuring out what's about to happen. Like, how close is this?

SIMON: The sense in the town was certainly that this thing was just a dead heat.

ROBERT: Really!

SIMON: Split right down the middle, yeah.

ROBERT: Oh, it's that close.

SIMON: That close. And so when we come back from break, Seneca goes to the voting booth and decides.

[LISTENER: This is Kim Eslinger calling from Bismarck, North Dakota. Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org.]

JACQUELINE LICKING: Hello.

SIMON: Hello, my name is Simon. I think I sent you a letter a week back.

JACQUELINE LICKING: Oh, we're not going to talk.

SIMON: Even—even for five minutes?

JACQUELINE LICKING: Nope. I don't want to. You'll probably talk to the haters, but I'm done. Let the lying dogs lay.

SIMON: Okay. Thank you so much.

JACQUELINE LICKING: All right.

SIMON: Bye.

JACQUELINE LICKING: Goodbye.

SIMON: All right, so that was—that was Jacqueline Licking, who is the woman who circulated the petition. And she just refused to talk to me.

ROBERT: I'm Robert Krulwich.

SIMON: And I'm Simon Adler.

ROBERT: This is Radiolab. And Simon Adler is with me. Just before the break you were saying, Simon, the town was in god awful trouble.

SIMON: Trouble. Half the town was so upset with the town and the government and the people of the town that they were circulating a petition that would end the town itself.

MATTHEW HANSEN: I mean, I got where they were upset, but I certainly don't get the idea that the solution is to end this place that has existed since 1888.

SIMON: This again is Matthew Hansen, reporter for the Omaha World-Herald.

MATTHEW HANSEN: And it bugged me.

SIMON: And why—why did that bother you?

MATTHEW HANSEN: Because I'm from a small town. I could imagine it happening to my town, and I could also empathize with the frustration of the people who wanted to keep it a town. I mean, you have to meet Sandy Hansen.

SIMON: Will you show me a couple of your favorite artifacts you got here?

SANDY HANSEN: Sure.

MATTHEW HANSEN: Who operates a museum of Seneca history.

SANDY HANSEN: I want other people to know just how nice this place is.

MATTHEW HANSEN: You cannot go to her museum and not say, "Wait a second. This place has value."

SANDY HANSEN: This one I wish could talk.

SIMON: What, we've got baseball jerseys here with an 'S' on them.

SANDY HANSEN: This is the Seneca baseball teams. I got the uniforms—even the socks.

SIMON: Oh, wow!

SANDY HANSEN: One pair of pants. Don't have a cap.

SIMON: Seneca had a baseball team?

SANDY HANSEN: Oh, yes. Known all over the country. Now this is a newspaper cutout. 1860. These are pictures of families that lived here. These are advertisements of people of the area.

SIMON: You've got a Seneca centennial hat.

SANDY HANSEN: Yes. And ...

SIMON: And so people just send you stuff?

SANDY HANSEN: Mm-hmm.

SANDY HANSEN: And so is part of the concern here that the history will be forgotten?

SANDY HANSEN: Yes, it is. Because we have been a town for 120-some years.

SIMON: And so what does it—what does it mean to be a town?

SANDY HANSEN: What does it mean? It means neighbors coming together for the good of each other. When my husband died, he died in Texas. I brought his ashes back and planned on just having a graveside service out there at the cemetery. Well, the townpeople wouldn't hear of that. They had a big meal prepared. My yard was mowed, the water was turned on. Everything was ready to go. And it became a full service.

SIMON: What did that feel like?

SANDY HANSEN: Felt like home. Like the way you're supposed to feel, you know? Warm and wanted.

JUDITH BROWN: You see, they're talking about something that used to be.

SIMON: Again, Judith Brown who wanted to end the town.

JUDITH BROWN: They wanted to preserve it the way it was. And I agree. It used to be a lot of fun, but that's true of any town up and down this railroad.

SIMON: But so if they're—if they're trying to preserve it, then what are you trying to do? You're just accepting that we're going downhill here?

JUDITH BROWN: No, I'm accepting that for I myself, I can't do any better than this for myself as an aging woman. I guess what I'm saying is to me, it's heaven. Like, I don't care about my house falling down. I'm 70 years old, and I'm gonna finish up my art supplies and die at the respectable age of 96. And I do have enough art supplies. [laughs] that I've been putting up for years to do that.

SIMON: And was that the nerve that was being touched? You're bad because you want to live this way?

JUDITH BROWN: Yes. These people saying we can be proud of our town, we can make it hustle and bustle.

SIMON: So if they're saying that then you're saying, no, we can be proud of just the way it is now.

JUDITH BROWN: Yeah. See?

SIMON: Okay, so how—when did you first hear about the petition going around?

MILLIE: Oh gosh.

SIMON: Again, Millie from the Save Seneca side.

MILLIE: I think the same day it was going around, I heard about it.

SIMON: And how—how did you feel in that moment?

MILLIE: It was horrible. It really was—it was just—it was more than frustrating, it was just like somebody punches you in the gut and lets all the air out. You know, it's just—it's just sad.

JUDITH BROWN: Mostly it just seemed like if we could get rid of this unbelievable piece of bureaucracy then we could just live here. So finally the unincorporation, it got on the ballot at the regular election, where you do the senators and all that. We had a special ballot for Seneca where we voted for the town and would it or would it not be unincorporated.

SIMON: And what did you feel when you were going to that to vote? Were you ...

JUDITH BROWN: I don't remember feeling anything except I've got to get in there and vote.

SIMON: If you don't mind just telling me how you voted.

JUDITH BROWN: Oh, I voted to unincorporate.

SANDY HANSEN: I voted to keep the town incorporated.

TERRI HARTMAN: I voted to unincorporate.

NANCY ISOM: I voted to keep the town.

JUDITH BROWN: And then she said, "Okay, that's the last Seneca ballot."

SIMON: Shoes on or shoes off?

JACKIE SEVIER: Shoes on.

SIMON: Okay.

SIMON: Jackie Sevier, saver.

SIMON: And so just because I don't think I've ever had anybody explain this to me yet, can you explain the night of the election and what—what actually happened?

JACKIE SEVIER: Well, you know, we have internet access, so we were watching the election results on the internet to see how it came out.

SIMON: And who is "we?"

JACKIE SEVIER: There were, I don't remember, four or five of us, six of us, maybe. I'm not sure who all was there.

SIMON: And so what—were you, like, refreshing the page over and over again? How did that work?

JACKIE SEVIER: No, we knew about what time there would be a—you know, we gave them an hour or so, and we logged on and saw it. We saw that the village was unincorporated. It was by one vote.

SANDY HANSEN: It was 15 to 16. We lost our town.

SIMON: Sandy Hansen again.

SIMON: What was that moment like?

SANDY HANSEN: [laughs] I can't say it on the radio.

SIMON: So what was lost?

JUDITH BROWN: Well, the day after they decided to abolish the town, the sheriff come down with them. I don't know whether they thought we were gonna shoot him off with guns or what, but the sheriff came down, they took the grader, they took the tractor.

SANDY HANSEN: They took our snowplow, and we no longer have our street maintenance, our lights, maybe our identity. I don't know. We never had much here, but we didn't ask for much, I mean, we lost it. We lost.

NANCY ISOM: Seneca will be taken off at the map, and if it isn't on the map where they can look it up, they ain't no more, nobody even knows it's there. Well, I cried. I mean, it hurt.

SIMON: Nancy Isom again.

NANCY ISOM: Because I've been here since my third grade year.

JACKIE SEVIER: People are moving away.

SIMON: And Jackie Sevier.

JACKIE SEVIER: I myself am ready to go. We're all ready to leave. We don't have anybody. There's been nobody move here since. Nobody.

SIMON: It sounds like you're saying the future is gone.

JACKIE SEVIER: I wouldn't say it's gone, but I would say it's very, very limited and unlikely.

TERRI HARTMAN: Yes, I voted to unincorporate.

SIMON: Again, Terri Hartman.

TERRI HARTMAN: But I love this town. And I think the people who voted to unincorporate it are the people who wanted to keep things the way they were. We didn't want to change. I know everything has to change, but—but I didn't know what else to stop the fighting. You know, this is my hometown too. I don't know how to explain it. It—it just got so ugly and out of hand. And some of the members of the village board were just crazy.

MILLIE: But the town board was just three members.

SIMON: Millie.

MILLIE: They have to do really what the majority of the town wants to do, otherwise we can get rid of them.

SIMON: So you believe in the democracy of Seneca?

MILLIE: I believe in democracy. Does that make me an idiot? [laughs] I mean, I live in hope, you know? [laughs]

MATTHEW HANSEN: It just—it really felt like Seneca had lost something essential when we're talking about basic American democracy.

SIMON: Again, Matthew Hansen of the Omaha World-Herald.

MATTHEW HANSEN: And it worried me to see that in part because I could feel that, and still feel that happening on a national level. The kind of just complete lack of conversation around shared values or compromise.

JUDITH BROWN: I've gotta smoke more and drink more.

SIMON: And one last time ...

JUDITH BROWN: Okay.

SIMON: Judith Brown.

JUDITH BROWN: So ...

SIMON: Can I tell you what I—what I hear here? Maybe the strongest argument for keeping Seneca a town on the books is that then there was some sort of framework to force those two communities within the town to be together and to think together. And with that now gone, there is now no communication, no compromise, no ...

JUDITH BROWN: There wasn't before. So none of those people had anything to do with us before except to continually criticize how we were. So we couldn't compromise with these people. They were not rational. All rationality was gone by then. And what's gonna happen with this next election?

SIMON: But America is full of diverse opinions, and it has managed to work. And I guess if we take what happened here and if we apply that model to the rest of the United States, like, if not a town, then what?

JUDITH BROWN: We have the county, we have the state, and the little town without those hateful people in it is really quite lovely.

SIMON: But it's not a town anymore.

JUDITH BROWN: I don't know why you think that.

SIMON: Well, officially, right?

JUDITH BROWN: But it is a town. [laughs] Here we are. I'm gonna live here until I die and so is Rose and Harry until some woman lands him.

SIMON: So you would say that even though on the books Seneca no longer exists, Seneca still exists?

JUDITH BROWN: We exist. And we're still two tribes. Two tribes of turkeys, that's how I usually put it, that'll never get along.

ROBERT: This story was produced and reported by Simon Adler. Special thanks to Ryan Scott on slide guitar, Michael Shoup on trumpet, Chase Cope on engineering help. Special thanks also to Matthew Hansen, a reporter at ...

SIMON: The Omaha World-Herald.

ROBERT: ... the Omaha World Herald. Okay, coming up we've got—I promised you two stories about your vote counting. The second one is a real picker-upper. It is—it's astonishingly important, pretty much central to the course of our national history, and I bet you've never heard this story.

[LISTENER: Hi, this is Barbie calling from Portland, Oregon. Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org.]

[LISTENER: Hi, my name is Miranda and I'm calling from Brussels in Belgium. I'm a member of Radiolab's exclusive membership program The Lab. My membership provides Radiolab with a steady source of funding so the team can continue to tell stories about our crazy world. And I get access to exclusive live events and bonus content. So join me in supporting the show we love. Sign up at Radiolab.org/join.]

CAROL BUSSEY: Now, y'all in New York?

ROBERT: Yeah.

CAROL BUSSEY: I'm gonna put on my most Southern accent now. I promise.

ROBERT: You don't have to pander to us.

TRACIE HUNTE: Wait, I thought—I thought that was pretty Southern.

CAROL BUSSEY: I'm gonna put on my most Southern accent here.

LATIF: All right. So this is Carol Bussey.

ROBERT: And I'm Robert. So we're Latif, Robert and Tracie.

CAROL BUSSEY: Okay.

LATIF: Hi!

TRACIE: Hi.

LATIF: That by the way, is our reporter and producer Tracie Hunte.

ROBERT: It's a three on one.

CAROL BUSSEY: Well, you know, we Southern girls, we can handle anything.

ROBERT: You can handle it. That's right.

LATIF: Carol is a professor of history at the Volunteer State Community College in Tennessee near Nashville.

CAROL BUSSEY: And you all do understand that Nashville is now the "It City."

ROBERT: Seems to be.

LATIF: But for our story, there was a moment in Nashville's history where it was not just the It City, it was the last stand in a long and vicious struggle for women to get the right to vote. It was the summer of 1920.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Abby Crawford Milton: The dear, hot summer of 1920.]

LATIF: That's an oral history recording of 101-year-old woman named Abby Crawford Milton, who in that very hot summer of 1920, descended upon Nashville with hundreds and hundreds of other suffragists like herself, anti-suffragists, lawyers, politicians, businesspeople, they all came to Nashville for this fierce legislative battle.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Abby Crawford Milton: The fiercest legislative battle that ever was waged on this continent.]

CAROL BUSSEY: Okay, now let me stop here and take us one step back.

JILL LEPORE: Okay.

LATIF: And we're also gonna bring in historian Jill Lepore.

JILL LEPORE: I'm a professor of history at Harvard.

LATIF: Where do you want to start?

JILL LEPORE: Okay. So when the ...

LATIF: She told us that at the end of the Civil War around 1865, as Congress was considering this new amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, which would give former slaves the right to vote, you had this small band of women who were wishing, hoping, fighting to be included in this new amendment.

JILL LEPORE: Women expect that the Fourteenth Amendment is going to lift any discrimination within the Constitution on the basis of race, color or sex.

ROBERT: Now why would they think that since nobody was saying, "Let's do this for the women" at Gettysburg or at Antietam or ...

JILL LEPORE: Well, they had been the stalwart allies of abolitionists. And women are really important to the founding of the Republican Party. And so when they say to them, "Oh yeah. Okay, you guys are gonna do this amendment? Obviously you're not going to forget us, right? Like, we're gonna right this political wrong. Let's do it. Like, let's just do it. Let's get this done."

LATIF: So this proposed amendment is being talked about in Congress, it's being perfected, its being tweaked. And it's about to come to a vote ...

JILL LEPORE: When almost at the last minute, the word "male" is put in there.

TRACIE: Hmm.

LATIF: Amending the amendment so that only men can vote.

JILL LEPORE: And it's the first introduction of the word "male" into the Constitution. So not only does the Fourteenth Amendment fail to guarantee women their citizenship and the rights that come and privileges that come with citizenship, it specifically excludes them!

LATIF: Wow, what a betrayal!

CAROL BUSSEY: That's right. We're starting back at square one.

LATIF: So at that point some women are like ...

JILL LEPORE: Goddammit. Like, all right, we're just gonna go vote.

CAROL BUSSEY: And so for instance ...

LATIF: A woman named Virginia Minor actually tries to vote. They won't let her.

CAROL BUSSEY: Goes to the Supreme Court. I guess you won't be surprised to hear—you're on the edge of your seats. What does the Supreme Court [laughs]—oh no, what are they gonna do? I can't wait to know! Thanks for coming! So the Supreme Court says, "Oh ladies. Oh, it's so cute that you thought you were included in the Constitution. No, no, no, no, no."

LATIF: And then in 1878, Susan B. Anthony proposed another amendment to Congress for the right to vote.

CAROL BUSSEY: People laughed about it, and then put it aside.

LATIF: And for the next almost 40 years ...

CAROL BUSSEY: ... there was no movement at all on this amendment.

LATIF: Until ...

CAROL BUSSEY: June 4, 1919.

LATIF: Just after World War I, after centuries of suffering suffrage ...

CAROL BUSSEY: Both houses of Congress finally passed the 19th Amendment to give women the right to vote.

LATIF: The amendment came after months of women protesting outside the White House, and years of working jobs that before the war had only ever belonged to men.

CAROL BUSSEY: But ...

LATIF: ... of course, it also came with a Constitutional catch.

CAROL BUSSEY: It had to go to the states to be ratified.

LATIF: Which just means that each state had to vote to approve it.

CAROL BUSSEY: Three-fourths of the state legislatures have to ratify the amendment.

LATIF: And how many states would that be?

CAROL BUSSEY: Well, 36 in this particular instance had to vote for it. Now ...

LATIF: ... right off the bat, they got Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan. And then after that it's just like dominoes. You get state after state after state.

CAROL BUSSEY: But then we got to 35 states and it stopped.

LATIF: Now knowing that the suffragists were only one vote shy, the anti-suffragists beefed up their campaign, which made it just harder and harder to get that final state. It was looking grim, until there was one state, just one state, that seemed like it might be teetering. And so August of 1920, Nashville, Tennessee, legislators from all over the state start arriving at Union Station. They're just immediately greeted by both pro- and anti-suffragists.

TOM VICKSTROM: Trying to pin either a yellow or a red rose on their lapel so everybody across town would know which side they stood on.

LATIF: That was Tom Vickstrom. He's the unofficial historian of the very place these legislators were headed.

CAROL BUSSEY: The most fashionable place in town.

LATIF: The Hermitage Hotel.

TOM VICKSTROM: Picture the lobby during the month of August swarming with people, both pro- and anti-suffrage.

LATIF: Women cooling themselves with palm leaf fans.

TOM VICKSTROM: And of course, no air conditioning.

LATIF: Men smoking cigars.

TOM VICKSTROM: Yes, a lot of smoking politicians.

LATIF: And on the second floor mezzanine, you have the headquarters of the anti-suffragists. And it's actually worth noting that a lot of the anti-suffragists were women ...

TOM VICKSTROM: ... campaigning actively against the right to vote.

LATIF: And then on the third floor, suite 309, you have ...

CAROL BUSSEY: ... Carrie Chapman Catt.

LATIF: The leader of the pro-suffrage side.

CAROL BUSSEY: She had no children, and her husband had died. She had devoted all of her energies towards this one goal of getting women the right to vote.

ROBERT: So she's the—she's the big Washington—the Bigfoot from Washington.

CAROL BUSSEY: She is. She is really much like a general.

LATIF: Both groups are there because this hotel is just a few blocks away from the state house, and they are trying to convince as many Tennessee legislators as they possibly can to come over to their side.

TOM VICKSTROM: It was all kind of hijinks and, you name it, eavesdropping.

LATIF: The antis would send the legislators fake telegrams.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Abby Crawford Milton: Saying "Come home. Your wife is dying."]

LATIF: Or fake phone call messages.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Abby Crawford Milton: "Come home. Your child is at the point of death."]

LATIF: So the suffragists are running around trying to stop these legislators from leaving town. Meanwhile, there's a room back at the hotel called the Jack Daniels Room ...

TOM VICKSTROM: ... where there was some Jack Daniels being dispensed by the anti-suffrage people.

LATIF: And supposedly, pro-suffrage legislators could be heard through the hotel walls singing anti-suffrage songs.

CAROL BUSSEY: Tennessee is supposed to be dry, and yet the antis are flagrantly violating Prohibition by having these events in which the liquor flows quite well.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Abby Crawford Milton: So all the members that they could get drunk, they took our votes away from us.]

LATIF: The closer and closer they got to the final day of voting, it became apparent that ...

CAROL BUSSEY: ... people who had come to town saying they were in favor of ratifying this amendment ...

LATIF: ... who had been wearing yellow roses ...

CAROL BUSSEY: ... started wearing red roses.

LATIF: Oh.

LATIF: And on the morning of the final vote, there had been so many red roses to yellow roses to yellow roses to red roses flip-flopping floppity flipping around, that by this point, no one had any idea what was gonna happen.

CAROL BUSSEY: That's exactly right.

ROBERT: Is it now clear to everybody that if the legislature of Tennessee passes this, it will become part of the US Constitution?

CAROL BUSSEY: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, you didn't have any cushion states that you could go to, you know, Nevada next. There were no cushions. It's now or it's gonna be a long time. And finally, it's going to happen one way or another on August the 18th.

LATIF: So the morning of the vote, the hotel starts emptying out. Everyone heads over to the state capitol. But Mrs. Catt ...

CAROL BUSSEY: ... because she was going to be looked at as an outside agitator ...

LATIF: ... she decided to stay behind.

CAROL BUSSEY: In the State Capitol in the House chamber, it's hot and humid.

LATIF: And the room is packed. The 96 legislators are settling at their desks, and above them, in ...

CAROL BUSSEY: ... the gallery around the top of the House chamber ...

LATIF: ... stand the suffragists.

CAROL BUSSEY: They are there along with the anti-suffragists, and you can be assured that both sides have their little pads and are counting the votes. And as they look at the roses, there are 48 yellow roses and 48 red roses.

ROBERT: [laughs]

LATIF: Oh, man!

ROBERT: And are these roses reliable? I mean, can ...

CAROL BUSSEY: Well, supposedly. If you're wearing a red rose, you're gonna vote against it.

LATIF: So before the voting even begins, they can see that ...

CAROL BUSSEY: ... we've lost.

ROBERT: Because you have to have a—you have to have a majority.

CAROL BUSSEY: Yeah. And the Speaker of the House, he had initially supported suffrage, but he's really on the side of the antis by this time. And before they really start the vote, he actually steps down on the floor to give a speech against ratification of the amendment. So, you know, there's another letdown. You know, it's lost. We've lost, we've lost.

LATIF: And two blocks away, in suite 309 of the Hermitage Hotel sits ...

CAROL BUSSEY: Carrie Chapman Catt. She was very nervous about what was going to happen. So they start the roll call.

LATIF: And as these names are called, one by one these men stand up and voice their vote. And among these legislators sits a young man.

CAROL BUSSEY: Harry T. Burn, a Republican legislator from Niota, Tennessee.

LATIF: At 24 years old, he's the youngest legislator in the House. The air is tense and still until the young man stands from his desk, a red rose in his lapel. But in his pocket ...

CAROL BUSSEY: He had a letter from his mother over there in Niota.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, letter: Dear son, we've had nothing but rain since you left.]

LATIF: Her name was Febb Burn.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, letter: Uncle Bill and Mr. Bushnell came over this p.m. Stayed about an hour. They were in the Ford. We haven't had that car out since you left. And if this rainy weather doesn't let up, I fear we'll all have to stay at home the rest of the summer.]

LATIF: And really, it's just this ordinary letter ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, letter: You'll tire of what I'm writing, but I haven't ...]

LATIF: ... from a mom to her son.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, letter: Marty was real sick yesterday, but was better this morning. She's been complaining all summer.]

LATIF: But tucked into all of those mundane details about life in Niota, there was this little motherly dig—a prodding.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, letter: I've been watching to see how you stood, but haven't seen anything yet.]

CAROL BUSSEY: "You know, son, I've been reading about this suffrage fight in the papers and I really hadn't seen your name anywhere." And then she says, "Don't forget to be a good boy and help Miss Thomas Catt. Vote for suffrage and don't keep them in doubt. With lots of love, Mama." Harry T. Burn is wearing a red rose.

LATIF: And his vote?

CAROL BUSSEY: He votes for women to have the right to vote.

ROBERT: So ...

CAROL BUSSEY: They're in the balcony. There's just a moment of silence. What's going on here? What's going on? You can imagine this. You can imagine this. And then it dawns on you: hey, Harry's changed his vote. It's not going to be 48 to 48. It's going to be 49 to 47. [laughs] The suffragists you can imagine are crying. The antis are furious. You can imagine the total chaos here in this situation.

ROBERT: But there must be an awful lot of attention paid to Harry, right? Like, what ...

CAROL BUSSEY: Well, the legend is that the antis start chasing Harry through the House chamber. Harry is completely undone. Oh my gosh, what have I just done? So he jumps out a window. Now he's not jumping out a five-story window, but he gets out of the building and shimmies down the ledge to the State Library, which is in the same building, where he gets in the window there and Mrs. Moore the librarian, Mary Danielle Moore, hides him in the stacks until the storm blows over. Now that's the legend.

ROBERT: Wow!

CAROL BUSSEY: Did Harry really climb out of that window?

JILL LEPORE: Did any shimmying happen? [laughs]

CAROL BUSSEY: Yeah. We don't know how exaggerated that part of the story is. [laughs]

LATIF: The shouts from the hill carried all the way back to the Hermitage Hotel. Mrs. Catt could hear them from her window. She knew they'd won.

CAROL BUSSEY: It was, in fact, passed.

LATIF: The certificate of ratification was sent to Washington, DC, and received by the Secretary of State. The final tally was actually 50-46. After Harry changed his vote, one other legislator switched sides, but it was clearly because Harry had changed first.

CAROL BUSSEY: That's right. See ...

ROBERT: So that vote was the—that vote became the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution?

CAROL BUSSEY: Well, yes. In a manner of speaking, yes.

LATIF: After the vote, Mrs. Catt sent Febb Burn a telegram. "You are blessed with a brave and honest son. Whatever the enemies of justice and decency may do now to show their vengeance upon him, he is bound to have a great future. You will ever be proud of him. Carrie E. Chapman Catt."

CAROL BUSSEY: Well, his political career ended rather shortly after that. [laughs]

ROBERT: [laughs]

CAROL BUSSEY: But, you know, he took his mother's advice, and he did get his name in the paper, didn't he?

ROBERT: When you think about it, the difference between men and women as voters has gotten ...

LATIF: Decisive.

ROBERT: Decisive.

LATIF: Yeah.

ROBERT: You know what? This has made me happy.

LATIF: [laughs]

ROBERT: Thank you, 19th Amendment and thank you, Latif.

LATIF: Yeah. The 19th!

ROBERT: For producing this and coming up with all these stories.

LATIF: Yes.

ROBERT: And checking them.

LATIF: And thank you listener for listening. And for voting when your local or state or national elections roll around because it matters.

ROBERT: Yes. Because it matters.

CAROL BUSSEY: My grandmother went to the Methodist Church in November of 1920 with her four-year-old daughter at her side, and voted because of something that took place right here in Nashville, Tennessee. I will never forget when I went to pick my mother up the last time she voted. She was sitting in the lobby of the retirement center where she lived, patiently waiting for me to come and pick her up with her American flag pin in her lapel. She was proud to be going to vote.

ROBERT: Thanks to Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe at the Denton Record-Chronicle in Texas, and thanks to Professor Rachel Goossen at Washburn University. Thanks also to Lynn Randall and Adrian Heath and Professor Mildred Warner at Cornell University. Thanks to Wayne Shulmister and to Debbie Daughtry who lent us their Southern accents. Thanks to Andrea Morrow and the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality, as well as the Tennessee State Library and Archives, the Hermitage Hotel, the Calvin McClung Historical Collection at the Knox County Public Library. And last but not least, thanks to the Plymouth Fife and Drum Corps, including—and especially director, Jim Predhomme, whose last name rhymes with "freedom."

[ANSWERING MACHINE: Start of message.]

[JILL LEPORE: Hi, this is Jill Lepore.]

[CAROL BUSSEY: This is Carol Bussey in Nashville, Tennessee. I serve as the Davidson County historian, am a professor of history at Volunteer State Community College.]

[ALAN LESLEYON: Hi, this is Alan Lesleyon.]

[JILL LEPORE: Radiolab is produced by Jad Abumrad.]

[ALAN LESLEYON: Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design.]

[CAROL BUSSEY: Soren Wheeler is our senior editor.]

[JILL LEPORE: Jamie York is our senior producer.]

[ALAN LESLEYON: Our staff includes: Simon Adler ...]

[CAROL BUSSEY: Brenna Farrell ...]

[JILL LEPORE: David Gebel ...]

[ALAN LESLEYON: Matt Kielty ...]

[CAROL BUSSEY: Robert Krulwich ...]

[JILL LEPORE: Annie McEwen ...]

[ALAN LESLEYON: Latif Nasser ...]

[CAROL BUSSEY: Malissa O'Donnell ...]

[JILL LEPORE: Arianne Wack ...]

[ALAN LESLEYON: ... and Molly Webster.]

[CAROL BUSSEY: With help from Tracie Hunte ...]

[JILL LEPORE: ... Nigar Fatali ...]

[ALAN LESLEYON: ... Phoebe Wang ...]

[CAROL BUSSEY: ... Katie Ferguson ...]

[JILL LEPORE: ... Alexandra Leigh Young, W. Harry Fortuna and Percia Verlin.]

[CAROL BUSSEY: Our fact-checkers are Eva Dasher and Michelle Harris.]

[ANSWERING MACHINE: End of message.]

 

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