@oristarA,
The electoral college does nothing to facilitate the election process--if anything, it slows down the official process. As far as knowing what the vote is, the news media get that information out within hours of the closing of the polls in the Pacific.
When the constitution was being written, the most important divisive factor was the struggle between small states (which is to say, small in population) and the large states. This meant, essentially, that New York and New Jersey, with small populations (unlike today) were pitted against Virginia and Massachusetts, with large populations (Virginia is no longer a large state in terms of population--in 1787, it had the largest population of any state). There were other important issues, too, of course, but that was the big one. The Second Continental Congress had governed the United States since 1775, and had become simply the Continental Congress, and operated under the Articles of Confederation. The Continental Congress was "unicameral," a Latin construction meaning "one room," and pointing out that there was only one "house" in the legislature (now, we have two "houses," the House of Representatives and the Senate, so the legislature is now bicameral).
Many delegates from small states had arrived in Philadelphia in 1787 with instructions from their state legislatures not to vote for any legislature with proportional representation. The means the number of representatives would be chosen on the basis of population. The Continental Congress had no set number of delegates, and every state had just one vote--which was called equal representation. Some delegates had instructions to withdraw from the constitutional convention altogether if anyone proposed a proportional representation.
Those boys were no dummies, and they resolved the convention into a committee of the whole (everyone there on one committee) so that they could talk it about without technically violating the instructions of delegates from small states. To resolve the issue of representation, two compromises were worked out. One was that the legislature, the Congress, would have two houses--the House of Representatives in which the states would be represented proportionately, based on population; and the Senate, in which every state would be equally represented, with two members. Because it was, technically, a committee, the delegates from the small states had time to contact their state legislatures to work out the deal. The House would be the only place in which money bills could originate, which was only fair, because the states with large populations would be providing the most tax and impost revenue. The Senate would have special sovereignty powers in which each state would have an equal part. Officers of the executive branch--any government official appointed by the President--have to be approved by the Senate. Treaties and alliances with foreign powers have to be approved by a vote of two thirds of the Senate.
The other compromise which was created to allay the fears of the small states that they would be swallowed up by the large states was the electoral college. Each state has a number of votes in the college equivalent to their representation in Congress. So, for example, a state like Montana, which is so sparsely populated that they only have one Representative in the House, still gets three electoral votes because they also have two Senators, just like every other state does.
The electoral college was not created because the founding fathers were contemptuous of democracy, as so many people erroneously claim. It was not created to either make elections faster and easier, nor to make them slower and more difficult to conduct. It was created as a compromise to assure states with small populations that they would not be overwhelmed by the states with large populations. That's all it intended.
I think the electoral college is a good idea. I would not want to see it eliminated. I doubt if it will be any time soon, certainly not in my lifetime. It would require a constitutional amendment, which means that two thirds of the Senate and the House have to agree on an amendment, and then it would have to be ratified by three fourths of the states.
That ain'ta gonna happen.
