I've also heard arguments put forth that the electoral college partly was put in place because the founding fathers didn't have faith in the average American citizen to make the best choice for the president. Back in the day, you voted for an elector, who then voted for the president, so basically the average Joe's vote was just show who he had faith in to make the "right" choice. Also, the electoral college facilitates the voting process when communication between regions could only be done through couriers. It's easier to count a couple hundred votes in each area and send an elector to Washington than to try to count thousands of votes statewide. The results have to be approved by Dec 22 if I remember correctly.

Currently, the electoral college for the most part is run the same way. Some states have bad faith elector laws, meaning that electors will get busted for voting against who they said they would vote for. One elector in DC abstained because DC doesn't have congressional representation.