The US is neither a republic nor a democracy

If free and fair elections on a secret ballot are one of the criteria for both systems.

Likewise, five million votes separated Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in the popular vote during the 2012 election. It would be a stretch to call the 2012 presidential election a particularly close one with a margin that large. But because of the peculiarities of the Electoral College, a shift in just three hundred thousand votes in four states would have made Romney, rather than Obama, the president. Similarly John Kerry would have defeated George Bush in the Electoral College with a shift of fewer than a hundred thousand votes in Ohio.

I want to post these results since there are people who claim to be "constitutional conservatives" who like the electoral college. I wonder how they can tolerate it when results like the one above are the norm in this system?

The only real reason it continues to exist is that it allows the duopoly ("Republicans" and "Democrats") to control the system. In fact, most electoral reforms would cut into the duopoly's system of control, which is why election reform and voting rights aren't high on the agenda.

So, when you think that the electoral college is somehow "good", just remember how much it distorts the vote.  It works both ways.  In fact, this distortion is more disturbing to me than the 2016 result was, but notice that no one talks about how the distortion of presidential election results is common in US politics.

Even among the "constitutional conservatives" who defend this bullshit.

I should also add that sham elections which are elections that are without any purpose or significance and meant purely for show are a feature of dictatorships. These elections may have choices, but they are meaningless choices which do not truly express popular opinion.  These type of elections are meant to try and establish a sense of legitimacy for an illegitimate government.

Given the results of the electoral college in distorting the popular vote, or totally negating it, one truly has to wonder why people try to establish a false distinction between republics and democracies other than many republics (e.g., USSR, German Democratic Republic, The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or Democratic Republic of Congo) are totalitarian states.

In fact, tolerating sham elections and a false democracy/republic ends up creating an oligarchy.

And you can't have either a democracy or a republic without free and fair elections on a secret ballot.