In fact, the main reason for the Electoral College was slavery. It’s another holdover from a past that should have been long ago discarded.

The populations in the North and South were approximately equal, but roughly one-third of those living in the South were held in bondage. Because of its considerable, nonvoting slave population, that region would have less clout under a popular-vote system. The ultimate solution was an indirect method of choosing the president, one that could leverage the three-fifths compromise
With about 93 percent of the country’s slaves toiling in just five southern states, that region was the undoubted beneficiary of the compromise, increasing the size of the South’s congressional delegation by 42 percent.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/electoral-college-racist-origins/601918/ (or https://archive.is/YnSkW )