The Improvement Association - Trailer

Serial - The Improvement Association - Ep. 2: ‘Where Is Your Choice?’

Zoe talks to people in the county who believe the Bladen Improvement PAC has been cheating for years. She tries to get beyond the rumors and into specifics, and comes face to face with the intense suspicion and scrutiny leveled against the organization. In the middle of another election, Zoe goes out with members of the PAC to watch how they operate and try to make sense of all these allegations against them.

The Improvement Association - Ep. 2: ‘Where Is Your Choice?’

From serial productions and The New York Times,

Being the chair of the Blading County Board of Elections

in a place where accusations of election fraud

and then they have to sort out what to go after

In 2018, the year of the big congressional race crackup,

the chair of the elections board was a man named Bobby Ludlow.

Republican, white guy, he'd served on the board of elections

Bobby noticed something unusual was happening

Blading always saw an unusually high number

and Bobby knew that a local elections guy,

McCray Dallas, had some people working for him,

Serial returns with a history of Guantánamo told by people who lived through key moments in Guantánamo’s evolution, who know things the rest of us don’t about what it’s like to be caught inside an improvised justice system.

Serial Productions makes narrative podcasts whose quality and innovation transformed the medium. “Serial” began in 2014 as a spinoff of the public radio show “This American Life.” In 2020, we joined the New York Times Company. Our shows have reached many millions of listeners and have won nearly every major journalism award for audio, including the first-ever Peabody Award given to a podcast.

Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest Serial Productions news: https://bit.ly/3FIOJj9

Have thoughts or feedback on our shows? Email us at serialshows@nytimes.com

0:00.0	From serial productions and The New York Times,
0:02.4	this is the Improvement Association.
0:06.6	Chapter two, where's your choice?
0:11.6	Being the chair of the Blading County Board of Elections
0:14.6	is a pretty intense job,
0:16.2	in a place where accusations of election fraud
0:18.7	are as common as American flags.
0:21.2	All the accusations come to the board,
0:23.3	and then they have to sort out what to go after
0:25.4	and what's just election noise.
0:28.0	In 2018, the year of the big congressional race crackup,
0:31.9	the chair of the elections board was a man named Bobby Ludlow.
0:35.6	Republican, white guy, he'd served on the board of elections
0:38.8	for years.
0:40.3	And during early voting that year,
0:42.4	Bobby noticed something unusual was happening
0:44.8	with absentee ballot request forms.
0:47.8	Blading always saw an unusually high number
0:50.4	of absentee ballot requests come in,
0:52.4	and Bobby knew that a local elections guy,
0:55.2	McCray Dallas, had some people working for him,
0:58.2	dropping off absentee request forms
	...

The Improvement Association - Ep. 2: ‘Where Is Your Choice?’

Serial

Serial Productions & The New York Times

Summary

Audio player

Transcript