Hey, it's Michael.

I want to tell you about a new audio series from the makers of serial and the New York

Times.

It's called the Improvement Association.

It's a story about race, politics, fraud, and power, and just how far people will go

to win an election.

Take a listen to this quick preview and to the entire series, which you can find wherever

you get your podcasts.

There is one glaring example, one of an election fraud case that Republicans and Democrats

agree happened.

It was 2018 in North Carolina, the only time in recent history, recently the last 80 years,

that a congressional election was thrown out for fraud.

Republicans like to talk about this case because it was Republicans who did the cheating.

Republicans like to talk about it without mentioning who did the cheating because it proves

that election fraud does happen, which it does.

Not very often, but it does.

I like to talk about this case because of how personal the whole thing was, how rooted

in this one county.

It wasn't the result of some complex national conspiracy to rig voting machines.

It was individual people in a tight-knit place using their relationships to either make money,

or take revenge, or both.

It looks like this.

...