The Electoral College is a process, not a place. The founding fathers established it in the Constitution as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and the election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. The Electoral College process consists of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress. The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your state’s entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member of the House of Representatives plus two for your Senators (Federal Archives).
Is this institution still relevant in the modern day?
The 2016 presidential election is history and the difference between the popular vote, which Hillary Clinton won by over two million votes, and the electoral vote, which Donald Trump won decisively. There have been five US presidential elections where the person elected president via the Electoral College lost the popular vote. In 1824 (John Quincy Adams), 1876 (Rutherford B. Hayes), 1888 (Benjamin Harrison), 2000 (George W. Bush), and 2016 (Donald Trump) (Grace University). I feel that because the electoral college has overthrown the popular vote twice in the last 16 years it is still relevant in the modern day. Changing or abolishing the Electoral College would dramatically change American politics, it does have a lot of problems and can be inconsistent, but I think that overall it still stands for its purpose.
Can we replace it, and if so, with what?
Over the years there have been many attempts to either change or eliminate the Electoral College. Over 700 proposals have been proposed in Congress to make a change. In 1987 a survey of lawyers showed that 67% of them supported the elimination of the college, while public opinion surveys have shown that the majority of Americans also support such a move. Despite this, it seems that most political scientists support the continuation of the system (History Central). I do not believe that it could be changed and be any more effective. I think that you either keep it as it is or get rid of it completely and use a ‘winner takes all’ approach with the popular vote.
How does this institution help or hurt democracy?
Democracy- “a system of selecting policymakers and of organizing government so that policy represents and responds to the public's preferences.” (Google). The Electoral College can hurt democracy as it may not represent public preference. For example, Hilary Clinton had 2 million votes more than Donald Trump in the popular vote but lost the electoral college vote by 97 votes, meaning that Trump became president, even though that is not what the “people” voted for. 53.9 percent of Americans who cast ballots chose not to elect Donald Trump as their president (The Nation). However, If the Electoral College vote matches that of the popular vote it helps democracy- as it mirrors the preference of the people. The Electoral college has only overruled the popular vote 5 times out of a possible 45 presidents, which shows it helps more than it hurts.