On Dec. 19, the Electoral College will meet to choose the next president.

As we know, it’s possible for a person to become president, having lost the popular vote. This has happened five times, including 2016.

From Article II of the U.S. Constitution: “Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the state may be entitled in the Congress.”

It’s up to the states to choose electors, so consistency is not required. Most states have a “winner take all” policy. If a candidate wins a state by a very narrow margin, he’s awarded all that state’s electors.

An obvious problem with this system is that some people’s votes count more than others in a presidential election. If you live in Illinois, a pretty solid “blue” state and voted for Trump, your vote didn’t have much effect. Same with Democrats in red states. This is why candidates usually spend more time in “swing states” such as Ohio or Pennsylvania than in states almost certain to vote either for them or for their opponent.

One reason the founders established the Electoral College was to give more power to small, rural states so that presidents would not be chosen entirely by cities. It was also a concession to the South, who because of the “three-fifths clause” had more power than a direct popular vote would give them. Also, the Founding Fathers were still a little leery of direct democracy. Alexander Hamilton wrote in “The Federalist Papers” that the Constitution should ensure “that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”

Recently, following the election of 2000, there’s been a movement to elect the president by popular vote. The most obvious way to do this is to amend the Constitution. But since an amendment must be ratified by three-fourths of the states, which would include rural states, this will probably never happen.

A more workable possibility is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), an agreement among states and the District of Columbia to award all their respective electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the overall popular vote.

The NPVIC has been passed into law in 11 states with 165 combined electoral votes, and it will take effect when the total is 270 electoral votes, enough to decide the presidency.

There would probably be court challenges to such a compact. The Constitution dictates that no state can enter into an agreement with another state without the consent of Congress. However, in Virginia v. Tennessee (1893) the Supreme Court decided that such consent is necessary only if the agreement encroaches on federal supremacy, and the Constitution clearly gives electoral decisions to the states.

Several posts on social media have tried to encourage voters to either urge electors not to vote for Mr. Trump or to try to get the NPVIC in effect for this election.

Much as many of us would have liked to see Hillary Clinton elected, we need to face reality. The NPVIC will not be in effect by then, and electors, though free agents, are not en masse going to vote for Clinton, or even Mike Pence. If they did, the country would be so divided that today’s electorate would seem unified.

Let’s accept the results of this election and work together to pass the popular vote bill and, most important, to prevent the implementation of policies that would drag America back into the 19th century.

Chuck and Pat Wemstrom live in rural Mount Carroll. Reach them at patandchuck@gmail.com.