It seems that as time goes by, my appreciation for the ingenuity of our Founding Fathers grows.

I am writing this without knowing the outcome of the election. I sit behind a “curtain of ignorance” with no prior knowledge of who will win the popular vote and who will win in the Electoral College.

We have a growing movement to replace the Electoral College with the winner-takes-all National Popular Vote. This is advocated by some influential voices on both sides of the political spectrum.

There are just so many reasons why the unique voting system for President is so vital to our republic. And thank God we are a republic; It is not a “democracy” with majority or mob rule.

Here’s a quick civics lesson on the wisdom of the Electoral College.

First of all: We are a confederation of states. The federal government’s power comes from the states and the people. Washington is not the center of the universe. Power is distributed throughout America. New York and Washington do not run our country, even if they think they do.

The Electoral College gives power to each state and maintains the states’ supremacy. Federalism is critical to our system. America is unique in the world in our system of checks and balances, decentralized government power, and protection of minority rights.

Without the Electoral College, eight to ten large states would determine the elections. California has a larger population than nine smaller states combined. But California, for all its virtues, is far from representative of our diverse country.

Would any candidate care about voters in Nebraska, New Hampshire, Nevada, Maine, Alaska, or Iowa, given that California has more voters than all of them combined?

They didn’t even bother going to those states and instead were chasing the final votes in Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago and the Bronx.

Second, the Electoral College significantly reduces voter fraud. The incentive to participate in illegal voting schemes in major cities (red and blue) would be incredible and impossible to control by the police. On election day, cemeteries would be filled with voters.

Under current election rules, the returns of filling ballot boxes in dark red and dark blue areas are limited. But in the case of the National Popular Vote, even a few hundred thousand illegal votes in major cities would result in complete disenfranchisement of all voters in North and South Dakota.

Stolen elections may become the rule, not the exception.

Some complain that the system is undemocratic because we hold elections where the candidate who receives the popular vote does not win the election. I think these occasional outcomes make the Electoral College even more indispensable to keeping our country intact.

The system is not perfect and something needs to be done to counter the risks of “disloyal voters” that could change the election outcome.

But just like tennis, where the player with the most points doesn’t always win the match, current voting rules help preserve our democracy rather than undermine it.

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