The election of 2016 is over. The votes are in. Donald Trump won presidency with 306 electoral votes. But is he really the winner?

For the fifth time in the history of the United States, a president won the electoral vote but not the popular vote. (Political cartoon published by Philadelphia Gazette in 1754, courtesy of Benjamin Franklin)

The Electoral College is a voting process existing ever since the United States was formed. The Founding Fathers passed the Electoral College not only because all other methods got rejected but for they did not trust direct democracy.

As Alexander Hamilton wrote in “The Federalist Papers,” the point of the Electoral College is to preserve “the sense of the people,” while at the same time ensuring that a president is chosen “by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.”

While the Founding Fathers had for sure good intentions, the present-day election shows the ineffectiveness of the method. Years 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and now also 2016 will be known as election years when the president won the electoral vote but did not win popular vote. As of 2016, Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote with a lead of nearly 2.6 million votes.

There are a few contradictions causing the Electoral College to be controversial. There are 538 electors in the United States, who are not required to cast their votes based on the popular vote in their states, according to current federal law.

Nevertheless, 29 states and District of Columbia have legal control over their electors’ votes, bounding them by state law or by pledge to a political party. That means that the country has no control over electors in 21 states. States requiring their electors to cast votes, charge them a fee ranging anywhere from $1000 to $5000 and 18 months in prison (the highest punishment in New Mexico) when not voting accordingly, but what is a fee compared to having a power to change history.

Because the U.S. Constitution does not require for electors to be completely free to vote their conscience, political parties try to make electors promise them their votes.

There have been 157 faithless electors throughout the history. It could be argued that they have never changed the outcome of the presidential elections, nevertheless, it also has never happened before that a businessman with no experience in public service became a president of the United States and here we are now.

The Electoral College is supposed to help to elect “president for all people.” Theoretically, the presidential candidate should reach out to various communities to make sure he wins because no geographic region has enough votes to elect the president.

In reality, candidates pay all their attention to swing states, and states believed to be deeply blue or red tend to be ignored.

Experts could argue that swing states keep changing. Texas used to be Democratic states once upon a time, but to be honest, does this fact change the way the candidates treat states such as Texas nowadays?

Having the right to vote is a privilege and a proof of freedom that needs to be exercised, but it is rather difficult to convince people to vote, and reassure them that each vote counts when, at the end, there are 538 electors who determine the next four years of administration, and at that moment, popular vote does not mean anything.

The Electoral College was a great idea back in 18th century, but it is a curse of the modern age. Long ago, when it was believed that gentlemen should not campaign for public office because “The office should seek the man, the man should not seek the office,” the Founding Fathers did not foresee a possible disagreement between the electoral and popular vote to the extent that such a dramatic outcomes could result.

As much as I honor traditions and heritage, the voting process needs an update. Yes, Donald Trump won the presidency and an absolute majority of the electoral votes, but as for the American people, they lost the election of 2016. A piece of democracy vanished with the definite count of popular votes. The President-elect, Donald Trump, agreed with ineffectiveness of Electoral College when stating on his Twitter shortly after 2012 election: “The Electoral College is a disaster for democracy.”