The idea is to make sure that the President is elected by a "broad base" of the electorate. By using the electoral college, you for the candidates to visit a wide scope and breadth of peoples to get the highest number of votes possible in those areas.
Without this college, candidates could just visit their respective bases and build a platform that only appeals to a specific electorate, however dispersed that electorate is.
Either way, if you are in the wrong column, you're disenfranchised. At least, with the electoral college, you can have some hope that those "swing states" will help swing your candidate to a victory.
Being left-leaning and in Texas, I'm heavily outnumbered.
Kal.
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