The Electoral College system for choosing presidents has been controversial since the nation’s founding, but never more than now and nowhere more than in California.

Donald Trump won the White House by prevailing in the Electoral College count even though Hillary Clinton got more votes across the nation and was the overwhelming choice in its biggest state. Both the Electoral College/popular-vote split and the disappointment of Democrats in California are shades of Al Gore’s loss to George W. Bush in 2000. The rules look unfair to a lot of people here.

Not surprisingly, the first legislative effort to abolish the Electoral College since the 2016 election has been started by a California Democrat, Sen. Barbara Boxer.

It’s time that some Californians, namely the members of this Editorial Board, deliver an unpopular message to our state’s advocates of the popular-vote system:

The fact that so many Californians are crestfallen about the Trump-Clinton outcome isn’t a reason to eliminate the Electoral College — it shows the need to keep it.

Look at it this way: As of this writing, Clinton’s lead in the popular vote nationwide was 1.7 million. Clinton’s lead in California was 3.5 million.

That means, when all the votes are counted and Clinton’s popular-vote edge is official, it probably will in a manner of speaking have hinged entirely on the results in California.

This is rare: In the Bush-Gore election, four states gave Gore vote margins larger than his 543,895-vote national margin. The last time a single state’s voting accounted for a candidate’s national vote margin was 1888, which happens to be the last election before Bush-Gore to see an Electoral College/popular vote split. Grover Cleveland received 90,596 more votes than Benjamin Harrison nationwide, and for that Cleveland could thank the 146,461-vote margin he received in Texas.

This year’s popular-vote count — nationally and in California — is a reminder that the Constitution’s authors were addressing a legitimate fear by adopting the Electoral College in part to prevent someone from becoming president by rolling up a huge margin in one big state, perhaps the candidate’s home state or a state with a narrow political interest.

Californians on both sides of the issue should be disabused of the assumption she would have won if Americans had been voting in a direct election on Nov. 8. Change one part of the game, and you’d wind up changing all sorts of other things you might not have anticipated. The candidates would have campaigned differently if winning the popular-vote count were the object.

Trump’s assertion in a tweet that he would have won a popular vote is rank speculation, but no more so than the belief of Clinton supporters that she would have won it.

Foes of the Electoral College also should realize that even if it had been abolished before the 2016 election, and Clinton had emerged as the winner, her “popular”-vote victory might have been no more broadly popular than Trump’s is.

People here must see this from the vantage point of 49 smaller states.

Think Californians for Clinton are aghast as they look at the rest of the country and wonder how it got crazy enough to go for Trump?

Imagine what the states that went for Trump would be saying about Californians if we alone had tipped the election to Clinton.