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Tomorrow, Americans will vote for their state’s presidential electors. This is the first step in the two-part democratic election process set forth in the Constitution for choosing the president and vice president. Electors will meet on December 17th, in their own states, to cast electoral votes.

There are many benefits to this system. Last week we explained five of them:

• Election disputes are contained within individual states;
• With states in charge, presidents don’t control their own elections;
• The Electoral College usually produces more decisive results;
• Our political parties are big, diverse, national coalitions; and
• Close elections are decided with greater political accountability.

Yet the Electoral College is ever under attack. There is even a National Popular Vote interstate compact plan to hijack it in order to change the results of future elections.

One danger of these attacks on the Electoral College is, of course, that we lose the state-by-state system designed by the Framers and its protections against regionalism and fraud. This would alter our political ecosystem in some obvious ways—shifting power towards urban centers, for example—but also in ways we cannot predict. Small plurality winners would be more likely—would that lead to a rise of splinter parties and spoiler candidates? Would fears of election fraud or voter suppression in distant states lead to even more distrust of results? Would there be a federal takeover? And what would the state and federal courts do?

The danger, however, is not merely that the attacks succeed in eliminating, or hijacking, the Electoral College. The more fundamental risk is the beliefs that underlie these attacks—that the Constitution is out of date, that the measure of an election is just how we feel about it, and that democracy is an end in itself. All those beliefs can as easily be turned against any of our constitutional checks and balances. The very idea of a constitutional republic is at stake.

The measure of our fundamental law is not whether it actualizes the general will—that was the French Revolution, not ours. The measure of our Constitution is whether it tends toward justice and those things that support justice, including stability. The Electoral College does this, and we ought not only to preserve it, but also to help our fellow Americans understand why it matters.

Part of this article is adapted from the Encounter Broadside book, Why We Must Defend the Electoral College, by Trent England.You can also learn more about presidential elections at ElectoralCollege101.com.