Under the Constitution of the United States, the 2016 presidential election will take place across America on Dec. 19 when electors, chosen by voters in the states, meet in their state capitols to vote for our president.

Most Americans today do not know why we even have the Electoral College. This ignorance is understandable, considering that the reasons for the Electoral College have never presented themselves throughout our entire national history.

That is, until now.

The Electoral College was designed for a pretty clearly stated reason: to stop a candidate like Donald Trump!

Don’t take my word, however. Listen to the founding father who helped design the Electoral College, Alexander Hamilton.

In Federalist Paper No. 68, Hamilton states that one of the provisions least controversial in the deliberations concerning the new Constitution was the method of electing a president, because the process would be “pretty well guarded.”

Hamilton states that the electors will engage in “deliberations” and will “possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations."

The electors’ investigations would particularly be designed to thwart the “most deadly adversaries of republican government,” most specifically “the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?”

United States intelligence agencies have confirmed that the Russian government committed espionage, an act of war, against the United States in hacking campaign email servers in an attempt to influence our popular vote election that chooses the members of the Electoral College.

Once that vote was held Nov. 8, Russian diplomats confirmed that the Russian government had been in communication with the Trump campaign throughout the election.

All information held by the U.S. intelligence community about these affairs should be shared with all members of the Electoral College before they cast their votes.

In Federalist 68, Hamilton also further describes that: “The process of election affords a moral certainty, 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.” Hamilton believed the Electoral College would block candidates whose only qualifications were “talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity.”

Mr. Trump has proven himself indeed to be adept at the little arts of popularity, though not adept enough to win him the popular vote. He is not, however, objectively qualified in any way to be president, having never served in the military, or in any public office, and he has no education in public administration, policy, or law.

Mr. Trump is, however, well skilled at low intrigues, particularly on Twitter and the campaign stump. The higher possible intrigue is whether he, or his campaign, engaged in outright treason against the United States by working with a foreign power that has committed espionage, an act of war, against our nation.

Our republic, and its Electoral College, was established to guard against the rise of a candidate like Donald J. Trump.

The electors are our protectors against the rise of fascism, or against a hostile takeover of our government by a foreign power.

I hope that the electors, with the assistance of information provided by the U.S. intelligence community, will thoroughly conduct their deliberations and “complicated investigations” before they cast their votes.

Benjamin Franklin said of our Constitution that it established a republic “if you can keep it."

The Electoral College is the American republic’s last line of defense.