The Electoral College - History

The Electoral College was set in the United States Constitution when it was written.  The Founding Fathers set up the Electoral College, in part, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and the election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. 
   Currently, the Electoral College consists of 538 electors (I would consider them delegates, myself). A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Each state has the same number of electors as it does members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two Senators. *The District of Columbia is allocated 3 electors, and is treated like a state for purposes of the Electoral College under the 23rd Amendment of the Constitution. (In the following writing the word "state" will also refer to the District, and "Governor" to the Mayor of the District of Columbia.)
   During a Presidential election, each candidate running for President in your state has his (or her) own group of electors, known as a slate. The slates are generally chosen by the candidate's political party in your state; but state laws vary on how the electors are selected and what their responsibilities are.
   The general Presidential election is held every four years on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.  When you vote for a Presidential candidate, you are actually voting for your candidate's preferred electors, as they will be casting their votes in the Electoral College.
   Most states have a "winner-take-all" system that awards all electors to the Presidential candidate who wins the state's popular vote.  However, Maine and Nebraska each have a variation of "proportional representation."
   After the Presidential election, each Governor prepares a Certificate of Ascertainment listing the names of all individuals on the slates for each candidate. The Certificate of Ascertainment also lists the number of votes each individual received and shows which individuals were appointed as each state's electors.  Each state's Certificate of Ascertainment is sent to the National Archives and Research Administration (NARA) as part of the official records of the Presidential election.
   The meeting of the electors takes place on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December after the Presidential election. The electors meet in their respective states, where they cast their votes for President and Vice President on separate ballots. Each state's electors' votes are recorded on a Certificate of Vote, which is prepared at the meeting of the electors.Each state's Certificate of Vote is the sent to Congress, where the votes are counted, and NARA, as part of the official records of the Presidential election.
   Each state's electoral votes are counted in a joint session of Congress on the 6th of January in the year following the meeting of the electors. Members of the House and Senate meet in the House Chamber to conduct the official count of the electoral votes. The Vice President, as President of the Senate, presides over the count and announces the results of the Electoral College vote. The President of the Senate then declares which persons have been elected President and Vice President of the United States of America.
   The designated President-elect takes the oath of office and is sworn in as President of the United States on January 20th of the year following the Presidential general election.

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   In 1787, at the time of the Philadelphia convention, when  the US Constitution was written, no other country in the world directly elected its chief executive, so all the delegates were wading into uncharted territory. Complicating the task was a deep-rooted distrust of executive power. After all, we had just fought our way clear from a tyrannical King and over-reaching colonial Governors. The delegates did not want another despot on their hands. 

   One group of the delegates felt strongly that Congress shouldn't have anything to do with picking the President. That way led to too much opportunity for chummy corruption between the executive and legislative branches. 

   Another group was dead set against allowing the people to elect the President by a straight popular vote. First, they thought that their 18th-century voters lacked the resources to be fully informed about the candidates, especially in rural and far-flung areas of the far western outposts. Second, they feared a headstrong "democratic mob" steering the country astray. And, third, they feared that a populist President appealing directly to the people could command dangerous amounts of power.

   Out of those long debates came a compromise based on the idea of electoral intermediaries.  These intermediaries wouldn't be picked by Congress or any other elected people. Instead, the states would each appoint independent "electors" who would cast the actual ballots for the Presidency.

   But determining how many electors to assign to each state was another sticking point. Here, there was a huge divide between states that had slave-owners and those that did not. It was the same issue that plagued the distribution of the number of seats in the House of Representatives: should, or shouldn't, the Founding Fathers include slaves in counting a state's population?

   In 1787, about 40% of people living in Southern states were slaves, and could not vote. James Madison, from Virginia - where slaves made up 60% of the population - knew that either a direct vote Presidential election, or one where electors were assigned according to the number of free white males only, would not be acceptable in the South.

   "The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [extensive, would be the current word used] in the Northern than in the Southern states," said Madison, "and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes."

   The result was the controversial "three-fifths compromise," in which slaves would be counted as 3/5 of a person for the purpose of allocating representatives - and electors - and calculating federal taxes. The compromise ensured that Southern states would ratify the Constitution and gave Virginia - home to more than 200,000 slaves - a quarter (12) of the total electoral votes needed to win the Presidency (46) at that time. 

Below, the 1800 Presidential Election Map