Actually the best point I heard during the election about the electoral college was from George Wills. The purpose is to provide a bigger margin in the college than the popular vote thus giving the new president legitimacy. Take the 1960 election: Kennedy won the popular vote by only 100,000 votes. That's one vote per polling precint. But with the EC, he had more than enough "votes" to show that he really had won.
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Actually the best point I heard during the election about the electoral college was from George Wills. The purpose is to provide a bigger margin in the college than the popular vote thus giving the new president legitimacy. Take the 1960 election: Kennedy won the popular vote by only 100,000 votes. That's one vote per polling precint. But with the EC, he had more than enough "votes" to show that he really had won.