The Daily Signal - A Young American's Take on Why Electoral College Remains Best Way to Elect President

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

The best method for electing the president of the United States, debated by the Founding Fathers, is a bone of contention generations later. Today, many call the Electoral College outdated. But Carly Terry, a new high school graduate from Nassau County, Florida, argued in an award-winning essay that the Founders settled on the Electoral College for a reason, and it remains the best way to elect the president.  Terry was awarded a $10,000 scholarship from the U.S. Constitution Scholarship Foundation for her essay as a senior in defense of the Electoral College. She and Howard Pines, a founder of the organization, join the podcast to discuss precisely why we shouldn't abandon the Electoral College. Also on today’s show, we share your letters to the editor and a good news story about the prayer gatherings taking place around the country since the death of George Floyd.  Enjoy the show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, June 29th. I'm Robert Blewey. And I'm Virginia Allen. On today's show, we talk with Howard Pines, one of the founders of the U.S. Constitution Scholarship Foundation, and Carly Terry, the winner of the $10,000 college scholarship from the foundation for her essay on the Electoral College. Carrie explains why the Electoral College is still the best way to elect the president today.

We also share your letters to the editor and a good news story. about the continued prayer gatherings taking place around the country after the death of George Floyd. Before we get to today's show, we want to tell you about another great podcast from our colleagues at the Heritage Foundation. Heritage Explains is a weekly podcast that explains all the policy issues we hear about in the news at a 101 level. Hosts Michelle and Tim mix in news clips and music to tell a story, but also bring in heritage experts to help break down complex issues. If you want to know how big tech is using contact tracing to fight COVID-19 or what is actually going on in Seattle, Washington's Autonomous Zone, subscribe to Heritage Explains. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We even put the full episode on YouTube.

Now stay tuned for today's show. Coming up next. I am so pleased to be joined by Howard Pines, one of the founders of the U.S. Constitution Scholarship Foundation, and Carly Terry, the winner of the $10,000 college scholarship from the Foundation for her essay on the Electoral College. Mr. Pines, Carly, thank you both so much for being on the show today. Glad to be here. I'm really excited to talk with you, Carly, about your essay and dive into why you wrote it. And more importantly, why the Electoral College is actually still the best way to elect the president today.

But first, Mr. Pines, can you just explain a little? bit about the U.S. Constitution Scholarship Foundation, what it is, what your mission is. Yeah, about four years ago in 2016, after Judge Justice Scalia was supposed to come to speak and actually passed away before, we came up with the idea of doing something for the students in regard to the Constitution because we didn't feel it was being taught in the New York Times actually had an article saying that it hadn't been being taught in the schools. So we came up with the idea. We came up with the school.

And a big facet of the school, which has six sessions a year, and they have to pass a final exam, was to come up with a 2,000 to 3,000-word essay. And the first year, there were two winners, and since then there have been five winners. And four of the five winners get 5,000. And this year, the top winner got 10,000. And the essays are first reviewed by the board. There were 33 of them this year that was submitted. And the board came up with 12 that they submitted then to our essay committee, headed up by a judge, Robert Foster.

And it was very interesting. The board and the judges all came to the same consensus about the number one winner, who was Carly Terry. Wow. And each year we come up with a different question. And this year, there was a number one. number of elements of the question, but it had to do with the electoral college and whether or not it was still the best way of going about the election. And who can submit an essay? Is it open to,

you know, only certain students or the whole country? What's the qualifications? Well, it's Nassau County, which are four schools, and then usually we have a home-educated group. And you have to be a resident of Nassau County to, and you have to graduate, you have to have a B average, you have to pass a final exam, and you have to be a junior or senior. If you meet those four criteria, you can submit an essay and you can be a contender. Wow. That's great. So Carly, I want to turn to you now and ask you a little bit about, you know, your decision to write the paper in the way that you did. And, you know, as, as you learned about the scholarship fund and decided to write this paper, yeah, what fascinated you about discussing that topic of the Electoral College?

Well, at first, I was just really, didn't know a lot about it, but I was taking AP government and politics this year. And we had been taught a little bit about the Electoral College, but not very in depth. Our teacher kind of skipped over it and basically said, when you're looking at the election result, just pay attention to the electoral college, not the popular vote. And so I just,

there was a lot I didn't know about it, a lot I didn't understand and I was really confused. And so I'm, originally I had the opinion of, why do we even have it? It's so confusing. And so writing this essay was a huge learning experience because I had to do a lot of digging and it taught me so much and I really changed my opinion by

the end. So it was really, once I learned more about it, I was very excited to be writing the essay and defending the electoral college and, you know, hopefully explaining it to people who were kind of like me and didn't really get it and just thought it's really confusing. Yeah. Oh, that's so interesting. So while you were doing your research, what were some of those things that you read that maybe surprised you or really led to your opinion changing? At first, it was just the original context of why the founding fathers chose to go with this and how they came up with it, how it wasn't just, it's not designed to be a perfect, let's fix, you know, fix every detail kind of thing because nothing's perfect, but it was something that

they really thought through, you know, hundreds of years from now how this affect the country. And it was the best decisions that they could come up with at that time. And so that was just interesting. And then just seeing how it's something that really affects smaller rural areas and helps them to be represented. Can you explain that a little bit more? What do you mean by that? How does the electoral college actually, you know, help what we kind of refer to as fly over America, states like Kansas and so on and so forth, and small towns out there to have more representation in an election? Because then presidential candidates and leaders cannot just look at the big cities and target them because if they, it was just based on popular vote, then, I mean, they could. They could. They could just do it.

based off of the most votes. But with the electoral college, they have to target every state. They can't just focus on swing states. They can't just rely on states that are always one way or the other. They have to be considering the entire country. And if they just targeted their larger cities, then they just would not, you know, with the Electoral College, if the state itself voted on a candidate, then they were loose. Yeah.

Let me see. The best way to explain that. No, yeah, I think you explained that very well. Well, and I love that you so, you really, in your essay, you tackled some of those common arguments that we hear against the Electoral College head on. And one of those that we hear is, you know, the system is just kind of dated and it's old because you say in your paper that the founders were concerned that individuals across the country that they just wouldn't have access to really know who the candidates were. They wouldn't have the right information. And obviously today, you know, everyone has so much information just right at their fingertips on their phone. And we're always being bombarded with information.

So we're now educated voters. but even giving that, it still seems like the founders understood that there would be a time in history when people would have that access to information, but yet they still all agreed that this was the best option, even though, like you said, it wasn't perfect. Yes. And even today, with the Internet and a ton of access to information, there's still, anyone can say anything out there on, put it, whatever they want on Facebook. and the potential for a kind of mob rule mentality is totally almost way more possible today than it was back then because you can see very strong opinions all throughout just by turning on the TV. And especially for younger, for teenagers, it's very easy to just believe the first thing you hear. and that affects your decision to vote, who you vote for, whether you vote or not. And so the process of the Electoral College still helps to prevent a mob rule mentality.

That's so fascinating. Mr. Pines, I want to ask you, do you think that the founders knew that this would remain such a controversial topic for years and years to come. I don't know. I think that they realized, even back then, that they were very worried about somebody who, you know, was very charismatic taking over and getting the votes. And it seems like Madison, especially, had a very good vision of the future and knew this was a danger, and that they wanted also, of course, to get the smaller state.

protected, that they had some leverage in getting an election. So I do think they thought it might be a problem, but I don't know that they could anticipate that it would still work, because I don't know that they knew, of course, there were only 13 states when they put this in, and I don't know if they could foresee how the country would grow. Yeah. So we're seeing today, though, that the system does still work, and yet it's so highly debated. So this is really a question for either, you, but why do you think we are seeing such a push for, you know, moving away from the Electoral College? Well, I think that obviously the cities would like to have more power, and they have the most

people, and, you know, people who believe, sometimes we get confused that we're just a total democracy, and we're really a republic, and people think that the numbers should control. And obviously, as a republic, it's a little bit different than that, and people don't all realize that, but they would like the popular vote to control. And I think the other side of that is we don't want the popular vote to always control. We want all of the states to have rights. Absolutely. Carly, do you want to add anything on that? I agree with everything he just said.

And I guess some of the past result of elections and we... I mean, there have only been five times where technically the electoral college has failed or the results of the electoral college and the popular vote were different. And so I think that's one of the reasons that it happened a little more frequently in the past few elections. And so that's contributed to more people questioning it. But seeing that overall, it's still very successful after 200 years. it still makes sense to keep it. So, Carly, what would you say to your peers who are maybe like, oh, I just don't know. Like, it just seems kind of unfair.

Like, we so often, I think, kind of hear that argument of, but it would just be better if there was one person's vote equaled actually one vote towards the president. What's your response to your friends that maybe make that argument to you? I do understand that it sounds unfair at first, but if you look at how if it was just based on one man, one vote, you may people in smaller cities and who don't have as much of their opinion may not be the opinion of the majority of the country, but their values and needs are still important. and still affect the rest of the country and if they are not considered and they're outweighed by the rest of the majority, then that will hurt the majority too. And a just popular vote, a city that has a certain value or view, the major view of that city, if it was contrasted with the view of a very small town, that small town could. be completely left out of any kind of laws or decisions that are made, and that would still affect the major city, too. Yeah. Yeah, it really creates that balance. It's so, so interesting, talking about that representation. So, Carly, congratulations to you. You won the $10,000 scholarship.

Can you tell us a little bit about your college plans and what the future holds for you? Thank you. I'm planning on going to the university for. and probably majoring in advertising. And I'm in U.S. Innovation Academy, so I'll be doing a minor in innovation and hoping to just use both of those just learning, advertising innovation to help create, you know, help promote brands that aligned with my beliefs and that I can help make a difference through promoting things that will help others. That's great. Well, Carly, all the best to you. And Mr. Pines, thank you so much for the work that you do to further liberty at the U.S. Constitution Scholarship

Foundation. Just really, really appreciate you all coming on the show today. Thank you. I'm Amy Swearer. And I'm John Carlo Canaparro. And if you want to understand what's happening at the Supreme Court, be sure to check out SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast. We take a look at the cases, the personalities, and the gossip at the highest court in the land. It's SCOTUS 101. Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday, we feature our favorites on this show. Virginia, who's up first?

In response to last week's podcast interview with Will Ford and Matt Lockett, Elizabeth Bowden writes, Dear Daily Signal, what an amazing story. As a former teacher of U.S. history, I was truly fascinated by Will and Matt's story. God is good and God created all skid colors. And in response to Walter Williams' column, insults to black history, Guido writes, 50 years ago, not only were the majority of black American families' two-parent households, but they were probably the strongest and truly loving family structures in America.

My early life was spent in a majority black neighborhood, and I remember being very envious of the support my friends received from not only their parents, but their entire family. Thanks for a very thought-provoking writing, Dr. Williams. Your letter could be featured on next week's show. So send an email to Letters at dailysignal.com. Virginia, you have a good news story to share with us today. Over to you.

Thanks so much, Rob. Well, you all may remember that just a few weeks ago, we shared about the prayer and worship gatherings that were taking place in Minneapolis. And those have continued. On June 19th, also known as June 10th, the day we celebrate the emancipation, of the final slaves being set free after the Civil War,

there were peaceful gatherings of prayer all over the country. And in Minneapolis, Dr. Alveda King stood in the very spot where George Floyd was killed and sang this powerful song. And Minneapolis was far from the only peaceful gathering that day. Thousands gathered in Atlanta, Georgia for the one race event with pastors from all over the city in metro area. in one particularly powerful moment, two Atlanta pastors, one black and one white, called Atlanta's new police chief, Rodney Bryant to the stage,

and prayed for wisdom and protection over him. There is a lot of good happening in the world right now, even if we don't see it. Pastor Miles McPherson, author of the third option, who we spoke with on this show just a few weeks ago, recently wrote something on Twitter that I found really encouraging. He said, here's a better way to approach media content. consumption. Ask yourself if what you're watching, ask yourself if what you're watching or listening to helps or hinders your ability to love your neighbor. Does it make you feel more justified in your

biases or does it foster a sense of compassion in your heart? Wow, I just love that question that he wrote certainly very relevant for all of us to be asking right now as we do seek reconciliation and unity as a nation. It's so true, Virginia. And I think whether it's COVID-19 or the unrest we're seeing on our streets right now. Certainly what you see and hear on the news or on the radio or read in the newspaper has an impact on our own thinking. And so I encourage our listeners to take that to heart and continue to turn to the Daily Signal for hopefully what they hear are good news stories and the truth about what's really happening. Absolutely. Yeah, we certainly take pride in doing just that rub with the Daily Signal, presenting the truth, but doing

doing so in such a way that honors all people. And you're doing a great job, Virginia. We thank you for bringing us these stories. We're going to leave it there for today. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on the Rurkishay Audio Network. All of our shows can be found at daily signal.com slash podcasts. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. And be sure to listen every weekday by adding the Daily Signal podcast as part of your Alexa Flash briefing.

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