@farmerman,
No, we don't agree on that. The Electoral system was created to reassure states with small populations that they would not be overwhelmed by the votes of states with large populations. It was not a case of the framers not trusting the voters so much as it was the voters of New York and New Jersey, for example, not trusting the voters of Virginia and Massachusetts.
The Virginia plan called for a legislature of a single house with proportional representation. This was a direct response to the great legislative weakness of the Continental Congress in which each state had a single vote regardless of population. Virginia was not just larger in population than New Jersey, it had a larger population than any other state--in most cases, larger than any two or three other states. Between them, Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania had more than half of the nation's population.
So the Virginia plan not only sought to address the weakness of the Continental Congress, it also was a naked power grab. The Connecticut compromise created the bicameral legislature, giving an equal representation in the Senate, and vesting the Senate with the nation's sovereign powers (the approval of the appointment of executive officers and the approval of treaties); while giving proportional representation in the House, and vesting the House with financial power--on the not unreasonable argument that as the states with the largest population would provide the most revenue (no income tax, and none foreseen, making the excise the largest source of continuing revenue--land sales were the largest source of revenue, but a finite source).
The Electoral College was a response to the fears and suspicions of the states. The small states feared popular vote because they rightly expected that in a nation spread out over such distances (about four or five million people strung out along a coastline stretching more than a thousand miles), states would end up voting for a favorite son, which meant that for the foreseeable future, Virginia would elect all the presidents, or a cabal would be formed by Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts to choose the president. Leaving it to the states to choose would, many feared, make the president subservient to the interests of the states, on the theory that he would promise them whatever it took to get elected.
The third option would be to let Congress choose the president, but that was just a wonderful blend of what were seen as the evils of the first two options. However, the EC combines both options while mitigating the evils thereof (or so it was reasoned), because more populace states would choose the most electors, but small states would still have a power greater than what was implied merely by population. The constitution also gives the right to the states to determine how electors will be chosen--so popular vote, mitigated by the direct relationship of the number of electors to the size of the congressional delegation, and the electoral system administered by the states was thought to provide the best blend of what everyone wanted while removing as much as possible the objections to each method.
There were no political parties then. Many people considered the very idea of political parties to be evil. It was also considered bad form to campaign for office (hence the belief that each state would choose a favorite son--they'd probably be ignorant of candidates from other states). Finally, there was the inherent mistrust of the states for the power of central government, making them reluctant to hand the power over to the Congress. That was essentially how the president had been chosen by the Continental Congress, and he was little more than a well-dressed gopher for the factions who chose him.
I happen to think the EC continues to be a good idea. Without it, California, New York, Texas and Florida would elect each president, with campaigning restricted to a handful of other populace states to add to the core support from those four states.
I don't for a moment deny the contempt for democracy of that age. However, it was a self-serving attitude. "We trust the voters of Pennsylvania, it's those sons of bitches in Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey who can't be trusted."
