At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, in Philadelphia, delegates
             made numerous decisions over our new nation's form of government. When
             they began talk of the executive branch, the question of how the president
             would be chosen posed itself. The delegates mulled over many options,
             searching for an appropriate and agreeable means for selecting a president.
             There were two main factors that contributed to the decision. One was the
             fear that giving the people a direct vote would open the way for an
             over-powering ruler, much like they had witnessed with Oliver Cromwell in
             England. The other factor was being able to appease both federalists and
             anti-federalists. Federalists proposed a direct election by Congress, while
             anti-federalists thought that the decision should be based more largely on
             the vote of the populace. The solution to this problem was the electoral
             college. This method of selecting our president would be made up of
             "electors", chosen by state legislatures. The number of electors for each
             state was to be the same as the number of that state's representatives in
             Congress; however, no member of Congress would be allowed in the
             electoral college to prevent the dominating political party in Congress from
             choosing the president (found2). The electoral college was a way for the
             politicians at the Constitutional Convention to allow the people's choice to be
             heard, while protecting them from their own ignorance. Although it was
             seen as the most plausible method of selecting a president by the delegates
             at the Constitutional Convention, the electoral college, was and still is an
             illogical and fallible method for a democratic presidential election.
             One reason for criticism of the electoral college is that small and
             "swing" states are overly represented in the electoral college. Because each
             state's number of electoral votes is deter...