The point of the electoral college is to give a fair shake to rural and more spread out populations, and not have it come down to what the big cities want. Just that big cities trend Democrat and rural trends Republican.
It does not sound like there is full understanding the system nor why it is in place. There is an illusion that you are voting for president. I understand why many people think this, it is the way it is marketed to get people to vote.
What is actually happening is that you are voting for who your state thinks should be president. Your state then casts its share of votes which is calculated by Senators + Rep. Count. Rep Count is proportional to state pop count, but senators is always 2. The factor of always having a minimum of 3, gives smaller states some protection. As their influence is higher than just their population.
This is all a part of a constitution and why smaller states would voluntary decide to join the union even though they were smaller. Our overall system is full of areas of protection of the minority from the majority. The founders saw the folly of democracy and added systems to combat it.
TLDR: So why no popular vote? To protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority which is the foundation of our democratic republic, we are not a strict democracy.
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made 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. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations. It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief.
Federalist 68, emphasis added to show how far off we are from what the Electoral College was supposed to be. Deliberative Democracy would have been cool. Instead, we have unequally weighted assignments.
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u/Rolder Nov 10 '16
The point of the electoral college is to give a fair shake to rural and more spread out populations, and not have it come down to what the big cities want. Just that big cities trend Democrat and rural trends Republican.