Current Affairs

This episode originally aired on October 22, 2024. Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs!Carolyn Dupont, a professor of history at Eastern Kentucky University, is one of the country's leading experts on the Electoral College. She is the author of the book Distorting Democracy The Forgotten History of the Electoral College—and Why It Matters Today, which debunks defenses of the Electoral College and shows why it's harmful to democracy. She joins us today to help us better understand this peculiar system and to go through the arguments in favor of it. Prof. Dupont notes in particular that the "Electoral College" we have today bears little resemblance to the system the Founding Fathers actually set up, which means that we can't appeal to their "intent" in order to defend it. She explains how this system came into being, how it changed over the years, and how it fails at achieving its supposed purposes, like giving small states a voice.Listeners may be interested in the Current Affairs article by A