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Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, a show about the past, rediscovered.

As presidential hopefuls take the stage for 2020 debates, it's tough to avoid talk of the importance of voting.

Sure, it takes effort, and you might think that your one vote won't really make all that much of a difference. But get this. In 1971,

a teenager named Stephen Burns nearly decided a Virginia

election with his one

vote. It's a crazy

story that ends

in essentially a

coin flip.

In 71,

Burns was 18 years old, a

newly minted voter. He was very

jazz to be part of the democratic process.

He was so jazzed that he didn't mind that he had to jump through extra hoops to cast his ballot.

At the time, he was attending college in New York, so he needed to vote absentee.

He dutifully went to his registrar's office to fill out his ballot.

Back then, absentees had to be notarized, and his plan was to vote a straight Republican ticket.

But the ballot did not identify General Assembly candidates by party, and he accidentally voted for two Democrats.

Oh well, no worries.

Burns went through great pains to correct his mistake.

He neatly crossed out the Democrats' names and then added this note,

...