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Attempts to prevent Donald Trump from receiving the Republican nomination for president have so far been unsuccessful. For the sake of argument, let us assume Trump is the nominee and wins the popular vote in the November elections, to the consternation of many Americans.

At that point, it would seem as though nothing could be done to prevent Trump from being sworn in as the 45th president on Jan. 20, 2017.

But this assumption would be wrong, because there is a perfectly constitutional process that would deny the presidency to Trump: the Electoral College.

Most often, Americans view the Electoral College as an antiquated institution that should be done away with. Are we not a democracy, after all? But an original purpose of the institution was to act as guardian of the republic. According to the Federalist Paper #68 by Alexander Hamilton, the Electoral College had but one supreme duty: to deny the presidency to any individual deemed by the members of the Electoral College to be unworthy,