Ellis: How the U.S. was saddled with the Electoral College
Briefly

The design of the Electoral College reflects the founders' skepticism of pure democracy; they intended to ensure that elected officials are guided by a broader public interest, not just popular sentiment.
Suspicion of democracy loomed large in the founders' minds, stemming from their fears of tyranny and the potential chaos of unrestrained majority rule, which they sought to mitigate.
The Constitutional Convention debates showed a clear unease regarding executive power and democracy, leading to a compromise that would permit electoral mechanisms to balance popular and institutional interests.
While the contemporary world leans towards direct election methods, the founders constructed a system, like the Electoral College, that expresses their enduring mistrust of unfiltered democratic choices.
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