The United States has an indirect election system. Citizens in each state vote for presidential electors, who then, in turn, vote on the candidates themselves. The system was explicitly designed to prevent popular but unqualified candidates from assuming the office of the presidency. Put plainly, the electoral college was created for one purpose only: to save the voters from themselves. It is the pinnacle of irony that Clinton, who won the popular vote, may in fact lose the electoral college — to the least qualified major presidential candidate in United States history. Though originally intended to prevent candidates like Trump, the electoral college has been perverted into an instrument of power. And it continues to exist because the only politicians who can end it are the same ones it empowers.

To break the cycle, the electoral college must be made into a political liability instead of a political boon. As a private citizen, the most effective way to achieve that end is to protest the delegates themselves. Hold them personally responsible for their vote. Convince enough of these 538 electors that the consequences of electing Trump are worse than those for Clinton, and they will break their pledges, even in the face of (very likely unconstitutional) state laws against it. Convince enough of them that voting in the electoral college at all will be worse than staying home, and the institution itself will perish.

And to be clear, the electoral college is decidedly not anonymous. The names of the electors are, for the most part, already publicly known. Additionally, after electoral college votes are cast, counted, and certified, they become a matter of public record, and as prominent political figures, the electors are very easy to find online. Boycott their businesses, march through their streets, and put their names on your signs. These men and women bear the final responsibility for electing Trump, and they must be held accountable for that fact.

Two things in this election are indisputable: Hillary Clinton captured the popular vote, and Donald Trump has has the majority of electoral college pledges. But Trump has yet to be actually elected, and Clinton’s concession is constitutionally irrelevant. The real election — the only one that matters—happens at your state capital on Monday, December 19th. Until then, those electors pledged to Trump hold the keys to the presidency, and are neither constitutionally nor federally bound to vote for him. Protest can end the electoral college, but only if it convinces the electors themselves to break it.