Why is the Electoral College important?

Why this is the answer

The Electoral College matters because it is the body that formally elects the President. The official list offers two answers: it decides who is elected president, and it provides a compromise between the popular election of the president and congressional selection. Either one is correct. When Americans vote in November, they are choosing electors, and the electors then cast the votes that elect the President. Article II, Section 1 gives each state as many electors as it has senators and representatives combined, and it bars members of Congress and other federal officeholders from serving as electors. The electors meet in their own states, and a candidate needs a majority of all the electors appointed. If nobody reaches that majority, the 12th Amendment hands the choice to the House of Representatives, where each state's delegation casts a single vote. Washington, D.C. is not a state, but the 23rd Amendment, ratified in 1961, gives it electors too: as many as it would have as a state, and never more than the least populous state. The compromise answer reflects a choice the writers of the Constitution faced. They could have let Congress choose the President, or they could have held a direct national vote, and the Electoral College was designed as a path between the two. Alexander Hamilton defended it in Federalist No. 68. He wanted "the sense of the people" to shape the result, while leaving the final choice to a small group of electors selected for that one purpose, people he thought best able to judge the qualities the office demands. The President is the only official elected by the entire country, and that election runs through the Electoral College. The mistake to avoid is crediting it with jobs it does not have. It does not count votes by congressional district, choose the Cabinet or decide how many senators a state gets. What it does is choose the President and the Vice President. The people vote for electors, and the electors vote for President.