The framing of that article that the writers of the Constitution established some genius system in the Electoral College is a fantasy at odds with the historical reality. The Electoral College was born of compromise and a simple lack of technology to conduct a national popular vote. The writers themselves saw it as barely justifiable even when they wrote it, and it’s certainly completely unjustifiable today. The only people still fighting for it are those who want to impose tyranny even when they can’t win the majority of the vote.

Jamelle Bouie on the Electoral College