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The Electoral College helps prevent a candidate from pandering to one region, or running up their votes in certain states. In the Electoral College system, once you win a majority of the votes in a state there is no need to get more. In a direct election, the more votes in a state the better. Here's an example why this can be a bad thing. Massachusetts is very Democratic. The Democrats will almost always easily win 50% of the vote. In the Electoral College system, the Democratic candidate visits a few times to make sure he'll win and then moves on to other states. In a direct election, the Democratic candidate would spend a lot more time in Massachusetts trying to push his vote total to 70-80%. In a close election, why visit a state where the polls say it's 50-50%, spend a bunch of money and time, and maybe get 1-5% more votes when you can go to a safe state that says you're leading 60-40%, spend less money and effort, and maybe get 5-10% more votes. In direct election, candidates would spend more time in states they're easily going to win in order to run up their vote total. With the Electoral College, candidates have to actually fight the close states.