What exactly is the electoral college, how does it work, and why do we have it today? Why can't the US just have a direct popular vote for president?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Electoral_College

If we wanted direct popular vote we would've changed the Constitution. The United States is not a "democracy " in the classical sense. It is a Federal Republic ;a nation consisting of individual states that have the right to influence national policy. Some of the states are large and some of them small .

The founders correctly decided that a popular election would be less than desirable in a nation where vast differences exist between regions . We are a geographically large, ideologically diverse, socially complex country with a diverse range of populations, regions, climates, and cultural habits. . There was a big concern in protecting the interests of the small states . In fact ;if such safe guards were not incorporated there never would've been a union.

The electoral college has successfully walked that line between the interests of the various states and the popular will. Each state is allowed a number of electors equal to the total number of their Congressional delegation (House and Senate ) which is based on state size.

Since the people of the country select the electors I do not understand why it would be an issue. To me this is more desirable than the Parlimentary system of having the majority party leader being the executive of the nation.
In Federalist 68 Hamilton addressed the rational behind the electoral college :



It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
The Federalist #68 (http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa68.htm)

I too believe that the electoral college works well for us. If we had a direct popular vote, could you imagine the problems that would come about if a recount was needed? Remember the 2 weeks of pain and uncertainty back in 2000 with the recount in Florida - if we had a direct popular vote back then the recount would have had to extend to every single county in the entire US - it would have taken months! So the mecahnics of how to run a direct popular vote would be problematic. One change I would agree with is that the states ought to move to a system like they use in Maine or Nebraska - it's not winner take all in those states, but rather electors are selected based on the popular vote split. I think that in the aggregate across the US that would give a fairer result. However, on election night it would take much longer to figure out who won.

Simply, without an electoral college in place to measure out things, we fall into mob rule. The big cities which garner most of the people would win everything, even things that the rural communities would then have to provide. Tough thing, democracy.

Representative government is far safer, but still not perfect. What can we do?