Brett McGinness

USA TODAY

America is holding another election today, and you're not invited. Five hundred thirty-eight voters will, in all likelihood, confirm what we learned Nov. 8: Donald Trump is the next president of these United States (barring a massive secret movement to deny him the 270 votes he needs). The Electoral College is the Macarena of American politics: We can barely remember why we started doing this, there are way too many steps, everyone hates it, and we're just going through the motions anyway.

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Electoral College to meet today in DC. And Bismarck. And Carson City. And ...

Planning a protest at the Electoral College today? We have some bad news for you. Although it sounds like a debate society, it's not an actual place where people get together and debate the merits of the nominees. It's just an imaginary institution that exists only in myths ... like King Arthur's Court, or Trump University. The electors never meet; they simply show up at their state capital and go through a few formalities to cast their ballot.

So although a majority of Americans feel like electors should be informed of the allegations of Russian hacking, there's not an opportunity to run off copies and distribute handouts to the 538 voters. They're not even all meeting at the same time, let alone the same place. 270toWin has it starting at 10 a.m. EST in four states and wrapping up by 7 p.m. EST in Hawaii. The protests are happening nonetheless; they're just happening in 51 different cities.

Democrats: 'Good luck with your kamikaze mission, guys!'

Over the weekend there was a last-minute $500,000 advertising push to convince electors to choose anyone but Trump.

Will it work? Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a relative moderate and the most-often-named alternative, has told electors he doesn't want their votes. As of Monday morning, there doesn't appear to be any sort of organized group of Republicans looking to deny Donald Trump the nomination ... which is just how they would want it to look, probably! Of course, the more likely explanation is that the Republican electors all plan to vote for Trump as scheduled. It would be political mass suicide for any of the Republican electors to join the "faithless elector" effort ... and there aren't enough electors lining up to drink the Flavor Aid right now.

Republicans took to the airwaves Sunday morning to call the protests an effort to de-legitimize Trump's election.

"The whole thing is a spin job," incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told Fox News Sunday. "And I think what the Democrats ought to do is look in the mirror and face the reality that they lost the election."

"The entire nonsense about the electors trying to use the Russian hacking issue to change the election result is really unfortunate," Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told CBS'Face the Nation. "I think that actually undermines our democracy more than any other conversation that we’re having right now."

Why do we do this again?

First, we voted on Nov. 8. On Monday, electors will get together to confirm that, yes, this is how our state voted. Then on Jan. 6, we count up the Electoral College vote to make sure the math checks out. Why are we doing all this, exactly?

Good question. In November's vote, Trump won the Electoral College, as well as the majority of states and counties. But Hillary Clinton won the majority of votes -- by more than 2.8 million votes at last count. But even though the majority of Americans would prefer electing the president by popular vote, changing the system will be an uphill battle. Because the current setup is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, a constitutional amendment would be required, which means two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives would have to back it -- along with 38 of the 50 states. And the current setup gives an advantage to less-populated states, one that they would be reluctant to give up.

"If we went by popular vote, no small state in America would ever see a presidential candidate," said U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the 2008 Republican presidential nominee. "Our system is vital to making sure that all of America determines the next president, not just where the majority of the population is, which is both coasts."

In other words: You'll be explaining this weird system to your foreign friends for the rest of your lives.

More from the transition

Obama: We handled the Russian hacking the way it should have been handled -- with mild protests (USA TODAY)

Senate Democrats will have a hard time thwarting Trump's agenda, thanks to Harry Reid (Reno Gazette-Journal)

Podesta: 'What did Trump Inc. know, and when did they know it?' (USA TODAY OnPolitics)

Let's go get the **** kicked out of us -- by the electors

It's December, and everything is futile. This seems familiar ...