Mobs Make the Worst Tyrants – The Wisdom of the Electoral College – with Harry Roth – [Ep. 285]

Linda J. Hansen:  Thank you for tuning in today. My name is Linda J. Hansen, your host of the Prosperity 101® Podcast, where we seek to unleash the power of employers to reclaim and preserve America by Connecting Boardroom to Breakroom® and policy to paycheck. Employers educating employees about public policy issues that affect their jobs can lead to greater employee loyalty, engagement, and retention, and to an increased awareness of the blessings and responsibilities of living in a free society. 

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As you know, every year, the debate and confusion about the importance of the Electoral College continues. It seems it's always in the news, especially before election seasons, and when it's not in the news, don't think it's not being discussed behind the scenes, because there are many people who would like to get rid of the Electoral College. The push for a national popular vote is growing, but in this episode, you will learn why that would be harmful for you, for your freedom, and for this nation.

My guest today is Harry Roth. He is the Director of Outreach for Save Our States. He is also the Project Manager for the Stop RCV Coalition, which is Stop Ranked Choice Voting Coalition, which we'll also discuss.

But he's a published author. He's been involved in this fight for many years, and I'm so glad that Harry is here with us today. Thank you, Harry.

Harry Roth: Hi, thank you for having me, Linda.

Linda J. Hansen: It's a pleasure, and tell us a little more about Save Our States. I had Michael Maibach on before to talk about the Electoral College, so people can look back at that, and we talked a little bit about Save Our States. But for anybody who has missed that episode, give us the overview, and then tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Harry Roth: Yep, so Save Our States was started back in 2009 by my boss, the Executive Director, Trent England. He noticed that states were starting to join this thing called the National Popular Vote Compact. It's a compact where states agree to give their electoral votes to the popular vote winner.

They pass into state legislation, so a legislature will pass it, then a governor will sign it. I believe Maryland was the first one to do that back in 2006 or 2007. So after noticing that states were starting to do that, and there was actual momentum behind that movement, he started Save Our States to combat that.

And I joined Save Our States in 2019, so 10 years after that.

Linda J. Hansen: Okay, great. And your role, tell us more about your role.

Harry Roth: Yeah, I'm Director of Outreach for Save Our States, so I handle a lot of the email marketing campaigns, I handle social media. If we go to events where we try to reach out to our people, or reach out to legislators, I handle that as well. Sometimes I'll go and testify when it pops up in state legislatures, and the same would stop ranked choice voting as well.

I'll go to testify if there's a vote to ban ranked choice voting, or if there's a vote to bring in ranked choice voting. So that's mainly what I do. I also write, like you said, I've not published any books or anything, but I write articles and op-eds, you know, talking about the issues we work on, mainly national popular vote and ranked choice voting.

Linda J. Hansen: Perfect, I appreciate that explanation. And I know that we'll give out all your contact information and how people can find what you've written and what you do. We'll give that out at the end.

But tell us a little bit more about, one, first, the importance of the Electoral College, and then we'll get into why this national popular vote is gaining momentum and why it would be so negative to our nation, to our freedoms, and to us individually. So first, tell us the importance of the Electoral College.

Harry Roth: Yep, so the Electoral College, it was devised during the Constitutional Convention. I think Alexander Hamilton said, if it's not perfect, it's at least excellent when he wrote about it in the Federalist Papers. It's an important system because America, especially now, is a large, diverse nation.

At the time, it was a diverse nation in the sense that you had people with different views. You had some states that were more agrarian states, other states that were less so. So it was important at that time.

Now it's extremely important because we're diverse ethnically, we're diverse religiously. We have states that have tens of millions of people. We have states that have less than a million people.

So to have a system where every state has some voice, every state gets at least three electoral votes, is important. It keeps everyone involved. It gives them a reason to actually go out and vote.

And, a lot of our agriculture is grown in pretty small states. I think Iowa is the number two agricultural state. Iowa, I'm not sure the exact population, but Iowa doesn't have more than a few million people.

So it would be a tragedy if we had a national popular vote system and people in Iowa, they produce a large amount of our nation's food. They had no voice at all. So it keeps that from happening. It's a great system in that sense.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, it is. And it helps to balance the population imbalances. You know, we think without the Electoral College, we'd have everybody in New York and California basically choosing our elected officials.

And that is not helpful. It's not really representative of the nation. One of the things that I think is so important about the Electoral College is it really, like you mentioned, helps each state to be represented.

And, some states are very, very small. Their culture, their economy, everything is very different. And their population is low.

But when we go into some of these bigger states and we can see even, sometimes the illegal voting that goes on in these states too, we can look and just say, we don't want that to be what is for the whole country. We don't want these two or three states that are highly populated to decide what happens in South Dakota or Iowa, like you mentioned, or Nebraska. Some of these states that are more rural, we need them to be represented well at the national level too.

And so the Electoral College really helps to protect those votes. And, I admit when I was growing up, I thought, well, that doesn't make sense. But the more I learned, the more I realized the wisdom of our founding fathers and how unique our system is and what a safeguard it is to make sure that we care about every part of our country and all the citizens across the nation and we don't just focus on certain areas.

So the Electoral College is really a safeguard for our votes and for our freedoms. And so tell us about the push with the National Popular Vote. Tell us what's happening with that coalition.

Harry Roth: Well, right now, Virginia recently joined. Governor Spanberger signed it, I believe, a week or two ago, sadly. So Virginia is the latest state to join now. There's 18 states and D.C. that are in the compact. They have 222 electoral votes. It takes 270 to go into effect. So they're just 48 votes short right now.

Before that, Maine passed it and Minnesota passed it. Now, Minnesota passed it in a really, really weird way. They weren't able to just pass the bill. There were a few Democrats that were against it. And they threw it into an omnibus bill and they whipped their caucus, kind of forcing them to vote for it. And that's how Minnesota was able to join in 2023, I believe.

But yeah, those are the last three states to do it. And there's a lot of momentum now because Virginia just joined. And it seems like anytime Democrats will get a trifecta in a state, they'll push it through as quickly as possible. So it's a real problem now. They have renewed momentum.

Linda J. Hansen: Right. And so people can learn what their messaging is. What did they say would be the best reason to adopt their view?

Harry Roth: To be honest, for the most part, I think it's because the idea of democracy has been beaten into our brains from a young age, even though we don't live in a pure democracy. It's a constitutional republic. There are democratic features.

But the idea of democracy has been beaten into us. And the idea of a national popular vote has been beaten into us, even though we've never had it. And any media head or anyone you hear from, if you go to school, any teacher will tell you that this is a democratic country.

It's a shame that these small states have more say than a voter in California. Why should a voter in Wyoming have four times or five times or however many times, have more power than a voter in California? So I think they just use that.

They use that line over and over again. This is a democracy. And it's not really a democracy if we have an electoral college system.

It won't be a true democracy until we have a national popular vote system. So I think we have to work on that. We have to teach people what our system really is.

We have to teach people more about the founders and who they really were, what they actually wanted to create. They may have escaped the king, but they didn't. They cared a lot about stability.

They cared a lot about property rights. They cared a lot about things that you'll only be able to maintain with a constitutional republic, not with a democracy. If you have a democracy, that's how you get the death of Socrates.

It's a terrible system. What we have is much better. They've had that beaten into them for so many years. It doesn't sound democratic, so we don't want it anymore.

Linda J. Hansen: We have to look beyond the language that they're using and look and see what is the true intent. A true popular majority vote is not necessarily what will help everyone long-term and with our whole nation, especially since we are so spread out and we are so diverse and our population centers are so centralized in mostly liberal areas. Even if they weren't, say they were centralized in conservative areas, we'd still want it to be balanced so that the electoral college would help protect the vote integrity for everybody across the nation.

Harry Roth: People don't get it. Tyranny is horrible. You don't want a monarch, but the mob is probably the worst tyrant. You can take out a king if it gets bad, you could have a revolution. How do you revolt against a mob?

Linda J. Hansen: The electoral college is basically a protection against that. If people only understood that. But we have the National Popular Vote Coalition which is gaining momentum.

What would you recommend people do to help educate about the electoral college and to slow down the spread of this National Popular Vote?

Harry Roth: If you visit our website saveourstates.com you can sign up. We can keep you informed about everything going on, if the National Popular Vote pops up in your state. We have a lot of information on our website about the history of the electoral college but also the history of the National Popular Vote, why they're pushing it, where it's been pushed, and the effect it will have on our country.

If you go on our website saveourstates.com you can find out a lot more. We can keep you informed on what's happening with the National Popular Vote in the electoral college.

Linda J. Hansen: I'm sure we can do that with Ranked Choice Voting too which now I want to move into an explanation for people on Ranked Choice Voting. I've done several episodes on this over the last several years always trying to bring it up into the forefront and help people understand why this is not ideal. I often think who thought of this?

It's a little crazy to my mind but if you could explain Ranked Choice Voting and also it has gained momentum in several states and it has really caused issues in certain elections and so I want you to talk about that.

Harry Roth: Ranked Choice Voting is a system where you'd rank candidates in order of preference so if there are five people running instead of just picking one candidate you'd select your first choice, second choice, third, fourth, fifth and if no one gets over 50% in the first round they drop off the candidate with the least amount of votes and they reallocate the votes that are on that ballot until they can create a majority for somebody. Kind of a fake majority really.

If somebody's ranking you can be extremely informed and you can say I know who I want first I know who I want second, third, fourth, fifth but not everybody knows that. And also you can be a principled voter and say I'm not going to rank these three guys because they're too far to the left for me I'm just going to rank these two guys well if they get eliminated your ballot will get eliminated with them so it'd be as if you didn't vote at all it's a really junky system but there's a silver lining it's now banned in 19 states we started doing this about 2023 at the time Florida and Tennessee just banned it but since then we've been able to work with state legislators we've been able to educate a lot of their constituents and then get them to ban it so it's now banned in 19 states Ohio is the last one to do it Indiana right before them and we're hoping we can get as many states as possible to ban it

Linda J. Hansen: That would be great. Can you name the 19 states where it's banned?

Harry Roth: Can I name every 19 states? I think I can.

Linda J. Hansen: If you need to– look it up real quick.

Harry Roth: Yeah I might do it real quick I'm sorry, it's hard to remember. 

Linda J. Hansen: No it's okay. I put you on the spot for that.

Harry Roth: It's currently banned in Florida, Tennessee, Idaho, South Dakota, Montana, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Wyoming, West Virginia, Kansas, North Dakota, Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, and Ohio so that's where it's banned currently. A ban almost passed in Georgia– it passed the Senate, and it was working its way through the House but the session ended sadly. So, it died but we're hoping we can get them to come back next session and ban it.

Linda J. Hansen: What about at the national level?

Harry Roth: At the national level only two states use it and they use it for federal elections. That's Maine and Alaska. There's a repeal effort in Alaska and they almost repealed it in 2024, it came about 700 votes short after weeks of counting. So, they almost repealed it and then there will be another vote in November, so hopefully they can get it repealed. And in Maine, they can only use it in state primaries and federal elections because of the state constitution. They recently tried to pass a bill, LD-1666, which would have expanded it to state elections, but the state supreme court struck it down, saying it was unconstitutional. So, it will only be used in federal elections in Maine and in state primaries for now. And, in Alaska they use it in federal elections but hopefully they'll get it repealed soon

Linda J. Hansen: I hope so, I followed closely some of the Alaska elections and was just appalled at the effects of ranked choice voting on those elections. So, we really need to educate ourselves and our neighbors, friends and those in our workplaces about this because there is such a lack of civic awareness and constitutional understanding now. It's not been taught in the schools it's not been taught even in the universities– it's almost like the opposite is taught in so many ways to hate America, we love socialism type education. And, that's not helpful.

Thankfully there are still institutions and organizations who teach the truth about the constitution and help to educate people. So, I'm really thankful for organizations such as yours. But, my goal is always to help employers, business leaders in the marketplace, even if they might be not running a business, maybe they're running a non-profit, they're a solopreneur– but they have a bunch of 1099 employees, whatever it is, we have influence in the marketplace and there's such need for education for people. 

As we look to educate people in the marketplace and beyond, when they're adults and they're past their schooling and things and they're out as voters, and family members, and they're leaders in their community, but they may not really understand some of these things about our constitution or why these safeguards to our voting are actually there. Why rank choice voting would be a problem, why abandoning the electoral college would be a problem. 

And so, I always try to help empower employers, or business leaders, marketplace leaders to understand the issues and how this connects the dots to their businesses. But, I also feel it's very important then that those leaders talk to their employees or consultants or whoever’s in their organization to help them understand these issues as well. So, if you were going to talk to those leaders– what would you tell them is the reason for the importance of explaining these issues to their employees?

Harry Roth: Okay, well I would say for one, the thing is stability. The electoral college gives us stability. Getting rid of the electoral college will bring instability, same with rank choice voting.

When companies decide what countries they are going to actually enter, what markets they are going to enter, where they're going to actually bring their businesses, they look towards countries like the United States. We have a large economy and we have stability thanks to our system.

But oftentimes they look at places like Saudi Arabia, they look to places that have– you could say tyranny, they have monarchy, but there's stability there. They don't want to go to a country that's chaotic, they don't want to go to countries that the economy is all over the place.

Or if you get a new person in, it completely changes the system depending on the president you have at the time. The American system allows for stability, it prevents chaos and I think that's one reason why they need to educate themselves and their employees.

If we maintain these systems like the electoral college, like the supreme court, like the senate, it'll keep America a stable country. And, it'll make it a much better place to do business compared to countries that are falling apart, because maybe they're a little too democratic– you get a new leader in there and it changes everything. You can't depend on those countries, but you can depend on the United States. And, I think without these systems it'll be a much worse place to do business.

Linda J. Hansen: That's a really good point, that stability. We have presidents that change all the time. I mean we can see a huge shift from the Biden administration to the Trump administration. We can see huge shifts in history from different administrations and we can see policies that changed policies that changed the business landscape or the regulatory landscape but we had this base.

We had the three systems of government, or the three branches of government. We had the three branches of government that helped to keep the checks and balances. We have the ability for people to vote people out of office, and if only they're informed enough to make a wise choice, and so that's where we come in. I think that's my hope to inform people, your hope to inform people. But, do you have something else to say about that, like just that stability and information and education so people understand the importance of it?

Harry Roth: Well, another thing too just about our system– our system of federalism is amazing because states have to compete with each other. Sometimes, you see New York or California do something really crazy, like the wealth tax, and you see people like Sergey Brin saying, well I'm going to move myself, I'm going to move my businesses out of this area, I'm going to go to Texas, I'm going to go to Florida, and for one it gives businesses a place to go.

If a few states are acting crazy– they're going too far in one direction, there are safe havens in our country, and also it kind of forces those states, maybe not today, but eventually, California and New York are going to have to get their act together if they want to remain competitive at all. So it's a perfect system in that sense. 

It forces states to not go too far in a particular direction, if they do it punishes them for it. Also, it gives businesses safe havens, like okay I can always go to Florida, I can't go to Florida, I can always go to Wyoming, I can go somewhere without having to leave the United States completely.

Linda J. Hansen: Exactly that's such a good point. I often have Jonathan Williams from the American Legislative Exchange Council on. I have him on usually once or twice a year, and we talk about the Rich States Poor States Guide, where they rank the states. 

The Rich States Poor States Guide really shows where are the best places to live, what policies are promoting human flourishing and freedom, and which states are really excelling in those. And you can really begin to see and compare. There's all sorts of ways they break this down, and you mentioned people leaving states to go do business elsewhere– I mean there's been just mass exodus from California and New York and other liberal states as well.

It’s very difficult to do business or to raise a family, and then they go into other states where the policies are better. So policy does matter. Policy affects paycheck, policy affects families, policy affects individuals, and it's very, very important that we understand that.

So, do you have anything else to add before we close? Something else you'd like the viewers to understand about your work with Save Our States or the Electoral College or Ranked Choice Voting?

Harry Roth: Like you said, it's important that business leaders understand our system themselves so they can educate their employees. We have a good book on the Electoral College on Amazon called, Why We Defend the Electoral College. It's really short, but it's just a great explainer on the history of the system, why we have the system, what it's done for our country, how it's brought us to this point where we can have prosperity, how we can be the number one economy in the world, the number one military power in the world.

And all those things bring stability and make us the most desirable place on earth to actually run a business. And if we keep these systems in place, and if employers actually educate their employees, we can keep that for the foreseeable future. I mean, I think a lot of employers over the years end up hiring people, obviously you hire people from our colleges, and the whole university system is so broken in this country, you end up hiring activists.

Some of them do that on purpose, you get some far left business leaders, but a lot of business leaders are decent people, they're not too involved themselves, they love capitalism and they're just trying to get the best employees possible. You have to hire from these universities, and they end up accidentally bringing in these activists, who in a way, really want to destroy our system of government, and in turn that's going to destroy the business. I think people are starting to realize that.

I think that's why you see a lot of business leaders, they're kind of giving up on hiring from Harvard or Columbia. They're like, you know what, I'll get someone from the state school who isn't a trained activist, who is just a person trying to find a job and actually cares about America, and isn't trying to change everything, and ultimately destroy my business. So I think that's the reason why it's just so important.

Linda J. Hansen: It's so important, could you name that book again, list that book again?

Harry Roth: Oh yeah, it's on Amazon, it's called, Why We Must Defend the Electoral College, and like I said it's just really good. It's a short read and explainer on the Electoral College system and the history of it.

Linda J. Hansen: You know, employers I recommend you buy a copy or buy several copies, and have them in the break room or have them available. I often tell employers it would be great for them to have a book club, or even just a lending library of books, that would help educate people. And, it's not mandatory, it's something that's there, they can learn from if they so choose, but a lot of times this information doesn't even come before people. They don't even realize something like this is out there. So employers, I recommend you buy a copy of this book and have it available for your employees.

It doesn't have to be mandatory reading, it can be optional, but it can help open their eyes to the truth about our constitution and how they would like to protect their own vote and their own freedom. So anything else you'd like to add before we close and give your contact information?

Harry Roth: Yeah, I'm not sure the best way for employers to do this, but I think it's important for employers to try to weed out activists in the hiring process. Again, there are probably legal… I'm not an employer, so maybe there's a way to do it, a way not to do it. But people have to be careful.

I mean if you're going to bring someone in that really doesn't like capitalism at all, they're just looking for jobs. As you know, they exist in a capitalist system, but they're ultimately trying to tear down that system. It's going to destroy you in the end. It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, but after they ruin our system they're going to come and ruin your business. 

So they need to be very careful in the hiring process, make sure you hire people, you don't have to hire just conservatives, you could hire liberals, but it can't be a person who is an activist, a person who seeks to destroy our constitutional republic, or a person who hates capitalism. Because, in the end, that's just going to destroy everything. You won't have a business and you're going to have to flee, to go somewhere else, and if we don't have this system of government anymore, there won't be any states to flee to, you're going to have to go to a completely different country.

Linda J. Hansen: Exactly. I'm going to put a plug in for one of our strategic partners, Red Balloon. Red Balloon is an organization, a company, that helps connect employers with employees. Their motto is, be free to work and free to hire.

Harry Roth: Yeah, that's the way to do it.

Linda J. Hansen: Be free to work and free to hire, and so I'd like to encourage people to go to Red Balloon, tell them we sent you, tell them you heard about it from Prosperity 101®. And you could follow Andrew Crapuchettes on LinkedIn, follow Red Balloon, and learn more about them.

But if you're looking for a job, or you're looking for employees, and you are someone who loves freedom and wants just to work, and build, and grow, I really encourage you to contact Red Balloon. They'll help you get connected with the right people and organizations that can help you flourish. That's just a little plug for them, but beyond that I also hope that employers will join my Employers Unleashed™ community.

Please go to the website and take the pledge, and learn about our Employers Unleashed™ community. And also the Breakroom Economics® course is a 12 lesson, very short lessons, that employers can share with employees in the workplace. They can do it independently, or a lunch and learn, or an all day seminar. But, we touch on all these issues. It's a very basic civics and economics understanding of how policy affects paychecks. So, I encourage employers to reach out to me about that. 

I'd love to work with you and help bring it to your workplace, and educate your employees. Our goal is to make sure that we can pass on freedom to the next generation. We're in our 250th year here in America, we're celebrating America's birthday, and we hope to preserve freedom for another 250 years plus.

So thank you Harry. How can people reach out to you?

Harry Roth: Yep. So you can follow us online. @Saveourstates is our handle on x.

It's on Facebook, Instagram, same with @stopRCV. My handle on x is @HarryRothBaron. But yeah, just follow us online, visit our website, stopRCV.com, saveourstates.com, sign up, get educated on the issues.

And we'll be there just to provide you with the information and the tools you need to help us defend the electoral college and stop rank choice voting.

Linda J. Hansen: Thank you so much. I look forward to having you back again. And you can update us and help us know the progress we're making.

So thank you.

Harry Roth: Thank you so much for having me.

Linda J. Hansen: Thank you again for tuning in to this episode of the Prosperity 101 podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please, subscribe, share, and give us a great review. Don’t forget to visit Prosperity101.com to sign our Employers Unleashed™ pledge, to access our entire podcast library, or to discover resources for use in your workplace. Let us know how we can serve you. Contact us today at Prosperity101.com.