In the act of voting, the voter commits himself to the (however flawed) idea of Majoritarianism. The implication is that one will accept whatever outcome is decreed by the majority.

In the case of the United States, of course, the outcome is ultimately determined by an electoral college. But the same principle still applies: By voting in an American election, one implicitly commits oneself to the results of that election as per the design of the American Constitution — which happens to place the final determination in the hands of an electoral college. Ultimately, the “meaning” of the Electoral College is that the U.S. is not a democracy, but a unified federation of sovereign states. Thus it is, strictly speaking, not the people but the states that elect the president of the states-united.

One often hears the old saw, “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.” But the reality — in the U.S., at any rate — is that if you do vote, you can’t complain.