Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) has openly called for the United States’ current system of electing a president, the Electoral College, to be abolished. She is joined in this sentiment by four other major candidates — Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York).

Aside from the danger and potential volatility that would be caused by attempting to overturn a longstanding system of choosing a chief executive, this idea brings with it political consequences.

First, it’s important to understand what the Electoral College is as established by the Constitution. Article II, Section I states that the person who receives the most votes among the nation’s electors becomes president. Each state has a number of electors corresponding to the number of senators and representatives that state has. And as per tradition (but not by Constitutional requirement), states have awarded their electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most overall votes in their state.

One benefit of this system is that each state runs its own election, so the likelihood of nationwide voter problems or fraud is reduced since there are 50 individual instances of electoral oversight taking place.

The galvanizing reason the aforementioned Democrats cite for wanting to put an end to this system is the fact that two out of the last five presidential elections have been won by a candidate who got more electoral college votes but fell short in the national popular vote. They contend that it doesn’t count every vote.

Sen. Warren is pushing for another amendment to the Constitution that “protects the right to vote for every American citizen and makes sure that vote gets counted.” And she says the only way to do that is to abolish the Electoral College.

All votes are currently counted, so we don’t need an amendment for that. However, if she does want to pursue an attempt to ratify an amendment to change the system, I would be curious to see how that would turn out — especially considering that the threshold is either that the U.S. House and Senate vote to ratify by two-thirds majority or that two-thirds of the state legislatures vote to ratify at a Constitutional Convention.

The likelihood of either scenario resulting in the abolition of the Electoral College is extremely remote.

Mayor Buttigieg told the Washington Post that doing away with the Electoral College would be “reassuring from the perspective of believing that we’re a democracy.”

But that’s just it. The United States is not a democracy. It was founded as a representative republic. Democracies are subject to mob rule and constantly changing populism. Our republic is outfitted with safeguards against becoming a democratic prisoner of the moment. One of those safeguards is the Electoral College.

Sen. Gillibrand went further, suggesting that the Electoral College has “distorted the outcome of elections and disenfranchised millions of voters.”

That is a very serious charge to make, and it is not made toward some political elite conspiracy in Washington that somehow deviously controls the outcome of presidential elections, as it is presented. In reality, such a statement is a direct attack on the Constitution.

The Electoral College actually gives more of a voice to many Americans who would not have much of a say at all if the popular vote were the only standard.

Under this system, the more populous states still have more sway than the less populous states. New York with 29 and California with 55 electoral votes have a lot more influence than Arkansas with six or Montana with only three.

But if the Electoral College did not exist, why would candidates ever venture out of the most populated cities in the nation? We would see presidential campaigns set up shop in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and maybe a few other cities, to the exclusion of places like Wisconsin, Nevada, Iowa, Florida and Ohio (all current swing states that will undoubtedly garner a lot of attention from candidates in the upcoming election).

That’s where the potential political peril comes for these Democrats who are proposing such a change. Voters in those swing states and potentially others that could be in play as well (such as New Hampshire, Indiana, Georgia, Missouri and others) know that the abolishment of the current system would mean that presidential candidates would barely — if at all — acknowledge them.

“Vote for me, even though I want to fix it to where I don’t have to come back to (insert flyover state here) in four years” is going to be a tough sell in those states.

There is another potential political risk Democrats run if they pursue a course of abolishing the Electoral College. What happens if the general mood of the populist swings toward their opponents in the coming years? What happens if it is the Republican Party which begins to win the popular vote in elections that are still close enough to perhaps result in a Democrat victory through the Electoral College? Being prisoners of the moment and subverting a system outlined by a nearly 250-year-old piece of law is extremely ill-advised and could easily come back to haunt those who attempt to do it.

I live in a state that has a single-digit number of electoral votes. Candidates don’t typically visit my state because it tends to lean in one particular direction. But one thing is certain: If the Electoral College is done away with, there is little chance a presidential campaign (or a president in office, for that matter) will pay much if any attention to the state in which I live.

This is an issue that we as Americans should not take lightly in the upcoming 2020 presidential election. Are we going to throw away our constitutionally-prescribed method of selecting a president because a few politically-motivated candidates find it inconvenient to their cause?

We live in a marvelous nation, and our system of government was assembled by some brilliant people. The Electoral College is a result of that brilliance, and calling for its destruction is a politically unwise and functionally dangerous move.

References used: Axios