the electoral college is meant to guard against fraud, states that have no voter id like california cheat like crazy but their cheating is contained because they only get so many electoral votes. if it were popular vote you'd have to have the feds run the elections as you couldn't trust states not to cheat and run up the numbers. we don't live in anything resembling a democracy since there's no voter id in many states but it still kinda works because of the electoral college
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