[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. I got a lot planned here for the next few minutes.

ROBERT: Okay.

LATIF: We are gonna go to Shiny Hiney Ranch. I'm gonna take you ...

ROBERT: To what?

LATIF: To Shiny Hiney Ranch. I'm also gonna take you back in time to a drunken scandalous hotel lobby. But before we do any of that, I'm gonna take you back to India.

S.Y. QURAISHI: Yeah. Good. We are back, ready to take the onslaught.

LATIF: [laughs]

LATIF: For an amazing story I heard from our friendly election commissioner, S.Y Quraishi.

LATIF: You just tell it as it unfolded from your perspective.

S.Y. QURAISHI: Well, the story starts in 2008, Rajasthan state was going for its state elections. LATIF: So Rajasthan is this enormous desertous state in northwest India with almost 75 million people—nearly two Californias. And in 2008, they were going into their elections, and ...

S.Y. QURAISHI: There was this leader called C.P. Joshi.

LATIF: Doctor CP Joshi. Joshi was in his 50s. He was a member of the Rajasthani Congress, representing the Congress Party, which is a little confusing, I know, but anyway, over the past 28 years, he had been climbing the political ladder. And in 2008 ...

S.Y. QURAISHI: He was the State President of the Congress Party. And general perception was that if Congress Party wins the election, he will be the next chief minister.

LATIF: Which is kind of like the governor.

ROBERT: Mm-hmm.

LATIF: So if he wins, it's like he'll be the governor of 75 million people.

LATIF: What was your role with respect to that particular election?

S.Y. QURAISHI: Well, you know, there is a three-member election commission. I was one of the three election commissioners.

LATIF: And so the day of the election arrives.

[NEWS CLIP: C.P. Joshi ...]

[NEWS CLIP: Congress President in Rajasthan, C.P. Joshi.]

S.Y. QURAISHI: When the votes are being counted, he lost by one vote.

[NEWS CLIP: C.P. Joshi has lost, though, of course it must be said, strangely, by just one vote.]

LATIF: which may not be as big a surprise given the title of the episode.

ROBERT: [laughs]

LATIF: But here's what is surprising: the final tally for the top two finishers was 62,216 to 62,215.

ROBERT: I mean, that's just acan that be?

LATIF: So that's what he asked, right? Like, Joshi, the incumbent is like, "No, no, no."

S.Y. QURAISHI: So he requested to recount the postal ballots.

LATIF: Like the mail-in ballots.

S.Y. QURAISHI: And there were about 500-odd postal ballots. In 15 minutes, the recounting was done, and the result was still the same.

LATIF: Still lost by one vote.

ROBERT: That is weird!

S.Y. QURAISHI: So then he called up a second time requesting for retabulating the totals from the machines.

LATIF: Meaning recounting all the electronic votes.

S.Y. QURAISHI: So he asked us to tabulate again.

LATIF: And after going through these thousands of ballots, adding them all by hand again ...

S.Y. QURAISHI: Still the same result.

ROBERT: [laughs]

S.Y. QURAISHI: And then after that we declared the results. He lost his chief ministership because he lost by one vote.

LATIF: Now that is brutal. That is brutal to lose by one, but it actually gets even more brutal—and personal—because people started talking about his wife.

S.Y. QURAISHI: People hear that his wife had gone to a temple.

LATIF: Rumors went on the day of the election, his wife had gone to a temple to pray for him, and because she was praying at this temple, she didn't make it to the polling station and she didn't vote.

ROBERT: That's the difference.

LATIF: That's the difference.

ROBERT: He looks at his wife, he can look at his wife and say, "You didn't vote, I didn't win. One causes the other."

S.Y. QURAISHI: So from there, you know, I developed this moral from the entire story that every single vote matters. Secondly, you can't take even your family for granted. And thirdly, on the day of the poll, the most important temple is the polling station.

LATIF: The most important temple is the polling station. But ...

C.P. JOSHI: No, no, it's not correct.

LATIF: This is C.P. Joshi.

C.P. JOSHI: I am the person who lost by one vote.

LATIF: I figured I should call him just to check.

C.P. JOSHI: It was not because of absence of anybody from my family. My mother, my wife, my son, everyone voted.

LATIF: Do you mind if I talk to your wife a little bit?

C.P. JOSHI: She's sitting with me. Can I give telephone to her?

LATIF: Yeah, please give the telephone to her. That would be great.

C.P. JOSHI: Okay.

HEMLATA JOSHI: Hello?

LATIF: Hello Dr. Joshi. Do you mind introducing yourself for me?

HEMLATA JOSHI: I'm Dr. Hemlata Joshi.

LATIF: And you definitely voted for and supported your husband?

HEMLATA JOSHI: Definitely. I[laughs] can't believe the media. Also totally wrong.

C.P. JOSHI: What happened in morning ...

LATIF: According to the Joshis, all this gossip started because on the morning of the election, Dr. Joshi and his son went to vote. There was a photo op. Everyone took pictures.

C.P. JOSHI: When that photo was flashed on the TV, in that photo, my wife was not there. My wife came from Jaipur.

LATIF: And later in the day did go to the polls.

HEMLATA JOSHI: I with my in laws, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law, they all cast a vote.

LATIF: But just no one took a picture. So because the picture of him and his son was on the news, everyone thought oh, it's because his wife didn't vote.

ROBERT: I see. And Ann Landers was probably covering it and simply announced "Well, the wife didn't vote."

LATIF: Right. And this is where things get even stranger. There was actually another wife involved.

S.Y. QURAISHI: You know, that part of the story is much too dramatic, so—and normally I don't even tell that part of the story.

LATIF: So here's what happened.

C.P. JOSHI: My supporter said, "Nate, we have to go petition."

LATIF: Shortly after the election, some of Joshi's supporters started coming to him and saying ...

C.P. JOSHI: People have casted more vote and all these things.

LATIF: ... "We think there's been voter fraud."

C.P. JOSHI: Yeah.

LATIF: And pretty quick ...

C.P. JOSHI: In videography, it was identified.

LATIF: ... they had proof that one particular woman had voted twice.

ROBERT: How do you vote twice?

LATIF: Well, she voted at two different polling stations, once under her married name and once under her maiden name.

S.Y. QURAISHI: It is very, very rare, but may happen.

LATIF: And here's the kicker.

C.P. JOSHI: It was the wife of this candidate who defeated me who voted twice. [laughs]

LATIF: [laughs] Hold on.

S.Y. QURAISHI: The other candidate's wife had voted twice.

LATIF: It was the wife of the man who won the election. And so ...

C.P. JOSHI: I went for the election petition in high court and then Supreme Court.

LATIF: And they ruled it was true. She did fraudulently vote. But then what? Because after all this ...

C.P. JOSHI: Recounting, the vote came out equal.

LATIF: Then it's a tie! So what are they gonna do then?

ROBERT: What do you do?

LATIF: Well, so what happened was that this investigation actually took four years for them to figure all of this stuff out, and the term for this—that they were being elected for is a five-year term.

LATIF: So then what happened? Did they—did they let him serve out his term or did they ...?

S.Y. QURAISHI: I tell you, he continued. Let it be like this. That's all. Because his time is expiring.

LATIF: If it was me, I think I would be so bitter.

C.P. JOSHI: Yeah.

LATIF: But you don't sound very bitter.

C.P. JOSHI: First time, it's a blessing in disguise.

LATIF: He says being defeated by his opponent, who by the way we reached out to but he was sick, he was not able to talk to us. That being beaten by that guy, Joshi sees it as a sort of blessing in disguise, oddly enough, because six months after his loss, there was a special election for not the state level in Rajasthan, but the federal, you know, the, like, Indian level. So he ran for this election and not only did he win, but eventually he got tapped to be Minister of Railways, which in India that's a big deal.

C.P. JOSHI: Yeah. Destiny had decided that I should lose by one vote and I should come in government of India. Had I not lost by one vote, I would not have been government of India. I would not have been minister.

LATIF: Do you take a lesson from this? What does it mean? How do you make sense of it?

C.P. JOSHI: I can only say that every vote is important. That message goes up of my election losing by one vote.

HEMLATA JOSHI: Very good.

LATIF: So after we hung up the phone, our reporter and fixer, Nalanjan Abalnek, who is over on the other side with the Joshis, she just kept asking them questions.

NALANJAN ABALNEK: In this case, two women were much in focus.

HEMLATA JOSHI: Correct. I did my best positively, but she did negative. This is the difference. She casted. That was wrong practice. That was wrong practice.

C.P. JOSHI: That is destiny. I believe in destiny. So to that extent, I give credit to him and to wife also.

HEMLATA JOSHI: No, no. You can understand. She did malpractice. That was malpractice.

C.P. JOSHI: But you have no right to say about that.

ROBERT: Honestly, I feel like I'm a little bit on her side. I mean ...

LATIF: How so?

ROBERT: Like, this was a vote matters story, but it was a fraudulent vote.

LATIF: [laughs]

ROBERT: I wasn't expecting you to champion the cause of one vote by giving me a stolen vote.

LATIF: Okay, I'll be honest, it took me a little bit by surprise, too. But the next one vote story, I promise you it is entirely legal.

ROBERT: It better be totally legal.

LATIF: And it's gonna take place stateside, deep in the heart of ...

ROBERT: Deep in the—ba ba ba ba, ba ba ba ba ...

LATIF: Wait, before you break into song, we have to go to break.

ROBERT: Oh, okay.

[LISTENER: Hey, this is Marta calling from Toronto, Ontario. 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.]

ROBERT: All right, we are back. I'm Robert Krulwich. This is Radiolab. And today, our producer Latif Nasser is taking us on his tour de force of great moments when one ...

LATIF: One vote matters.

ROBERT: Yes.

LATIF: And as promised, the next story, certified to be fraud free, takes place in Texas.

ALAN LESSELYONG: So these are—this is the property up on the right.

LATIF: At a cattle ranch.

ALAN LESSELYONG: Shiny Hiney.

LATIF: Called Shiny Hiney.

ALAN LESSELYONG: You can see the other residents, 200 head of cattle. Let's see if we can take a look.

LATIF: And the guy you just heard is Alan Lesselyong.

ALAN LESSELYONG: And I'm the emperor of Shiny Hiney.

LATIF: [laughs]

ROBERT: Emperor of Shiny Hiney.

LATIF: Okay, to explain, I should back up a little bit. In 2009, Alan had just finished up grad school. He was living in Dallas with his parents.

ALAN LESSELYONG: Yep. Yep. Then one day I was actually on my way back from a ski trip, and I get a call from a man I know. You know, he said he was looking for somebody that needed a change in their housing situation, and had an opportunity to discuss. And so I called him back.

LATIF: And he said, "Look, I've got this thousand-acre ranch up north of Dallas that I'm trying to develop. Nothing up there right now, just cows and fields, but I need someone to live up there for a while in a mobile home trailer. And if you do it, I'll make it worth your while.

ALAN LESSELYONG: So for $150 a month, I got a three-bedroom trailer with a kitchen and a living room and a bedroom and an office and all that.

LATIF: He got his utilities paid for free internet.

ALAN LESSELYONG: And put in that satellite dish so I could get high speed internet.

LATIF: And he's like, "Yeah, I'll do it."

ALAN LESSELYONG: Handshake deal. And the next thing I know, you know, he's ordering a trailer, and I'm changing my residence.

STEPHANIE KUO: Can you describe what it looks like out here?

ALAN LESSELYONG: We got fields far as the eye can see.

LATIF: We actually had Alan give reporter Stephanie Kuo a quick tour of the ranch.

ALAN LESSELYONG: And watch out for those cow patties. Honestly, it was refreshing. I used to do campfires. When it gets hot, I would go for a dip in the watering hole. If I didn't want to see another human being, I could go days or weeks without seeing another human being. It's probably the biggest piece of shade we got.

ROBERT: So if he's getting all these goodies, what's his buddy the developer getting in return?

ALAN LESSELYONG: Well, it basically required me living up here as the only legal resident.

LATIF: In other words, the only eligible voter.

ROBERT: Voting for—what's he gonna vote for?

LATIF: So here's the deal: Alan's buddy and his crew, they wanna put houses on this land. But first, they have to put in a bunch of utilities.

ALAN LESSELYONG: You know, streets and sewers.

LATIF: All things that normally taxpayers would pay for. Of course, these guys are private businessmen, not a government that can levy taxes, but according to Texas law, property owners and residents can get together, hold an election, and decide to create a special district like a tiny little government that can levy a tax, which would be ideal for these developers, because then they could just get a loan to build the streets and stuff, and then pay the loan back through that tax. Problem is, there aren't any residents on this land. There's no one to vote this whole deal into existence in the first place. And that is where Alan comes in. Once he's living on this land, he can be the voter to levy the tax, to get the loan, to build the roads, to bring the people who would eventually live here and pay the tax. So they told him, "You can live up here cheap with all the utilities and internet paid for, you just have to vote in this election."

ALAN LESSELYONG: Yeah, they didn't push me in any one direction, but it was clear, if there's one issue on the ballot, there's a reason that one issue is on the ballot. And a woman named Angela comes and she brings me my voting booth.

LATIF: Which is basically a little table.

ALAN LESSELYONG: It's like a folding table.

LATIF: Along with an electronic voting machine and a whole list of rules.

ALAN LESSELYONG: You have to open polls at 7:00 am, you have to close, you have to be the election judge, you have to sign this, things like that.

ROBERT: Does that mean that this guy's gonna not only be the voter in the election, but he's gonna run the election, he's gonna vote—manage his own vote?

LATIF: Yeah, exactly.

ALAN LESSELYONG: Had to be aware of the perimeter, because if somebody had come up with a political poster or something and tried to put that up within 100 feet of the polling location, I would have had to ask them to stop.

LATIF: Did you have to put up one of those cardboard—like those secret—so it's secret so no one can see what you're voting?

ALAN LESSELYONG: Oh, yeah. Of course. I wouldn't want my kitty cats to know how I voted on that election.

LATIF: Okay. [laughs] Wait, what were your cats' names? I'm sorry. Now I'm just curious. I just need to know.

ALAN LESSELYONG: Yeah. No, Raina and Lucius. That's a valid question. Because they were—I was the election judge, but they were my polling assistants. They even got name tags.

LATIF: [laughs] You made name tags for them?

ALAN LESSELYONG: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

LATIF: So day of the election, with the sun rising over the plains of Texas ...

ALAN LESSELYONG: I set up my music outside.

LATIF: What kind of music were you playing?

ALAN LESSELYONG: I play house music.

LATIF: [laughs]

LATIF: So he cranked the beats, set up his voting booth.

ALAN LESSELYONG: Extend the legs, plug it in. It boots up.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Hello. Thank you for ...]

ALAN LESSELYONG: Hello. You know, whatever. And I think it was, like, pre-programmed with the ballot.

LATIF: There he is. He's in the middle of nowhere. He's got a trailer, he's got some dance music, he's got these two cats with name tags. He's got this voting machine. It's a dance party.

ALAN LESSELYONG: I literally sat here from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm.

LATIF: Then at some point, he sort of makes the decision to vote.

LATIF: What does the ballot look like? Can you remember?

ALAN LESSELYONG: It was not as simple as yes or no. I want to say there were, like, three or four parts to it.

LATIF: Here in front of me, I actually have the ballot.

ROBERT: Okay. Is there a proposition on it?

LATIF: Yes. So there's several propositions. One literally just says "District. For." There's a box. "Against." There's a box.

ROBERT: Shall we do this?

LATIF: Exactly. And then after that, there's a section where he votes in the board of directors. So there are—so he has to vote for five. It's like a choose five of the below. And you have one, two, three, four—there are only five candidates.

ROBERT: He has to choose five people. And there's a list in front of him of five people.

LATIF: Yeah. And then this little government that I've just created one proposition ago will be able to borrow money, and the people who live here afterwards will have to pay it back. So Alan voted yes for everything.

ALAN LESSELYONG: Yep.

LATIF: Did it say the amount of money? Or did it say what it was for? Or was it just like, all ...

ALAN LESSELYONG: No, there was a dollar amount, and if I remember correctly, I want to say it was $340 million. $240. It was something like that.

LATIF: [laughs]

LATIF: $371,273,000.

ROBERT: My God!

LATIF: Which means that the future residents of this property are on the hook for nearly $400 million.

ROBERT: Is this—is this a common practice at this point?

LATIF: There are right now, at the moment—I just got this email from the Texas government. There are 1,237 of these types of utility districts across Texas right now. They cover 2.9 million acres. So that's basically two Delawares. And according to the Houston Chronicle, you've got two million Texans right now living in these kinds of utility districts.

ROBERT: And how much money has been raised to make those governments?

LATIF: Ballpark figure? Again, from the Houston Chronicle ...

ROBERT: Okay.

LATIF: For the outstanding debt of these types of utilities districts. $60 billion.

ROBERT: $60 billion!

LATIF: $60 billion. Six zero B-billion.

ROBERT: This feels wrong to me. Like, these taxes were created by individuals who squatted on property for a while and mostly left, didn't have to pay the taxes. It just feels a little unfair, to me anyway, for the people who will live there one day, will pay the taxes and never got to vote.

ALAN LESSELYONG: If somebody, you know, lives in their $300,000 house, and every year they have to pay $3,000 in tax that they wouldn't have if I had not voted the way that I did, would they resent that? Maybe. But people complain about paying their taxes, and yet they get in the car and they drive on the road that's supported by federal tax dollars.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jane Nelson: My constituents are livid. They're furious.]

LATIF: So this is Republican State Senator Jane Nelson, and she argued that these situations just put way too much power in the hands of a single voter. And she brought to committee a bill that would fix the problem.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jane Nelson: What I did is require a minimum of 40 voters to establish ...]

LATIF: Basically, she said these elections should require no fewer than 40 voters.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jane Nelson: Which would help ensure that actual residents of the community will have a voice in these elections.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Texas Senate: Okay, let the fun begin. I mean, let the testimony begin.]

LATIF: But at least for now, the state legislators in Texas have decided that all you need to pass a tax of this kind is one vote.

ROBERT: That's the story.

LATIF: That's the story.

ROBERT: [laughs] We were coming to celebrate the idea that one vote matters in a glorious, wave-the-flag sort of way, not in a fraud in India and taxation without representation way. I wanted ...

LATIF: You wanted some yay.

ROBERT: Glory or something.

LATIF: Mm-hmm. Okay, I have one. I have one more. I have one final story.

ROBERT: Oh, good.

LATIF: And why don't you come with me? Why don't you do this?

ROBERT: I will come with you to make sure that you make me happy.

LATIF: Yes, come with me. Let's figure it out.

CAROL BUSSEY: Now, are 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 voting, which we're gonna already thank you for because we know that you're gonna do.

ROBERT: Yeah, like, go out and vote. Whatever you choose, just go out and vote because this is ...

LATIF: 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, and a professor of history at Volunteer State Community College.]

[ALAN LESSELYONG: Hi, this is Alan Lesselyong, emperor of Shiny Hiney.]

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

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

[CAROL BUSSEY: Brenna Farrell ...]

[JILL LEPORE: David Gebel ...]

[ALAN LESSELYONG: Matt Kielty ...]

[CAROL BUSSEY: Robert Krulwich ...]

[JILL LEPORE: Annie McEwen ...]

[ALAN LESSELYONG: Latif Nasser ...]

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

[JILL LEPORE: Arianne Wack ...]

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

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

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

[ALAN LESSELYONG: ... 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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