These are some excerpts from an article I found. Whether one agrees with it or not, it does provide an interesting explanation of the reasoning behind the electoral college:
Runs must be grouped in a way that wins games, just as popular votes must be grouped in a way that wins states. [In the 1960 World Series] The Yankees won three blowouts (16-3, 10-0, 12-0), but they couldn't come up with the runs they needed in the other four games, which were close. "And that's exactly how Cleveland lost the series of 1888," Natapoff continues. "Grover Cleveland. He lost the five largest states by a close margin, though he carried Texas, which was a thinly populated state then, by a large margin. So he scored more runs, but he lost the five biggies." And that was fair, too.
In sports, we accept that a true champion should be more consistent than the 1960 Yankees. A champion should be able to win at least some of the tough, close contests by every means available - bunting, stealing, brilliant pitching, dazzling plays in the field - and not just smack home runs against second-best pitchers. A presidential candidate worthy of office, by the same logic, should have broad appeal across the whole nation, and not just play strongly on a single issue to isolated blocs of voters.
Individual voting power is higher when funneled through districts - such as states - than when pooled in one large, direct election. It is more likely, in other words, that your one vote will determine the outcome in your state and your state will then turn the outcome of the electoral college, than that your vote will turn the outcome of a direct national election. A voter therefore, has more power under the current electoral system.
A well-designed electoral system might include obstacles to thwart an overbearing majority. But direct, national voting has none. Under raw voting, a candidate has every incentive to woo only the largest bloc-say, Serbs in Yugoslavia. If a Serb party wins national power, minorities have no prospect of throwing them out; 49 percent will never beat 51 percent. Knowing this, the majority can do as it pleases (lacking other effective checks and balances). But in a districted election, no one becomes president without winning a large number. of districts, or "states" - say, two of the following three: Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia. Candidates thus have an incentive to campaign for non-Serb votes in at least some of those states and to tone down extreme positions-in short, to make elections less risky events for the losers. The result, as George Wallace used to say, may often be a race without "a dime's worth of difference" between two main candidates, which he viewed as a weakness but others view as a strength of our system.
In the 1960 presidential race, one of the closest ever...a deadlock would have been 34,167,371 votes for Kennedy and the same for Nixon (also-rans not included). Instead, Kennedy squeaked past Nixon 34,227,096 to 34,107,646. You might as well try to balance a pencil on its point as try to swing a modern U.S. election with one vote. In a typical large election, individuals or small groups of voters have little chance of being critical to a raw-vote victory, and they therefore have little bargaining power with a prospective president.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_n11_v17/ai_18762289
---
Legend, oh legend, the third wheel legend...always in the way.
