The Electoral College

The Electoral College Map for 2012, 2016, and 2020

The history of why Hamilton and Adams put the Electoral College in the Constitution tells a different story than is generally known. While the number of senators per state was established to offset the popular vote, the Electoral College was created as a compromise during the Constitutional Congress because southern states had smaller populations of eligible voters than the northern states. 

This was because a large percentage of the southern states' populations were slaves.

The northern states did not have slavery. The working class in the industrial North could vote. The concern of the slave states was that they wouldn't be represented, so a compromise was made called the Electoral Collage where the representation would be made on assigned electors, and not on eligible voting population. 

This gave the slave states equal representation to the Northern States even though a large percentage of their population could not vote. Hamilton and Adams agreed to this to get the Southern States to vote to ratify the Constitution.

For more on the Electoral College, please go to this link→