The United States Electoral College, established in the original Constitution , has been a topic of heated debate from its inception. During the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, delegates evaluated various ways to elect leadership, including through popular vote, gubernatorial vote, legislative processes, and even a lottery system. Ultimately, an Electoral College of state-appointed electors was created as a compromise between a popular vote and congressional selection - designed to preserve states’ rights and allow citizens a vote, but with an “ added safeguard of a group of knowledgeable electors with final say on who would ultimately lead the country.” Along with the creation of the Electoral College, House of Representatives, and other population-based initiatives, came the difficult subject of state representation. Southern states, which had a significantly smaller free population than the large cities of the North, feared being governed by the will of the mo...