I have honestly not heard a persuasive argument for the Electoral College (in its current state).
EDIT: and let me clarify. The reasons the Founding Fathers had for using it....things like the "Tyranny of the Majority", and other reasons like "Equal representation for States" are simply not addressed properly in today's EC. The Tyranny of the Majority was based on the population being almost entirely uninformed, and vunerable to influence by a few. Today, with the availability of information, it simply is not the case anymore. Sure there are issues with echo-chambers, Super PACs, biased News networks.....but the solution of having EC representatives that will vote even if the dumb population has been "coerced" is moot as they simply delegate all the EC votes as determined by the popular vote anyway.
As for the "equal" representation of the States, well that is simply a cluster-fuck. States simply are not equal, but even if they were then they would have an equal amount of votes. But the votes aren't equal...they get more EC votes due to difference in population right?. That makes sense, except for the EC votes are not based on population, making some citizens votes unequal in value.
So to summarize, the reasons the EC exists are being completely ignored due to very poor design of the EC.
1) The Tyranny of the Majority fear of the popular vote is not addressed as the EC votes of each State are decided by...Popular Vote?
2) The Equality of State representation is not addressed as each State is not given equal EC representation.
3) The value of each citizens vote is not treated as equal due to the completely illogical design of awarding EC votes by Number of Congressmen and Senators....which also exacerbates #2
Thus the EC (in its current form), a monumental failure, when addressing the issues it intended to address.
Lets look at some hypothetical examples. To prevent the Tyranny of the Majority, we have to believe that a few bad actors have influenced the population of say Wyoming. The EC Delegate is supposed to be able to make the decision to go against the will of the people, and award the EC votes to what he/she thinks is appropriate. So now an entire State populations votes can be in the hands of a few delegates? That doesn't seem to be Ok....it seems easier to corrupt a few EC delegates than to coerce the majority of a population, right? Either way, the problem isn't really addressed today anyway...as Delegate in 99.99% of the time, simply award EC votes as the popular vote goes.
With the States' representation, the EC fails either way you look at it. States should be equal, or the individual vote should be equal. There is no other way to look at it. Either each State gets 1 Electoral vote, or it is decided by population. Going by the number of Congressmen works, as it is done my population, right? But when you add the arbitrary number for Senators, that skews the representation DRASTICALLY. This way allows for equal representation for NO ONE....neither State NOR individual citizen.
So it fails to achieve equal representation for anyone or anything! Completely useless.
It also doesn't address the issue of candidates not campaigning in lesser populated States. Even with the EC votes in small states being artificially inflated by the Senator numbers, it is STILL too small to make POTUS candidates spend equal time campaigning there...they simply don't go.
The issues come into light when a candidate loses the popular vote to the EC. What did the EC prevent from happening in these situations? Was some outrageous candidate prevented from winning due to influence of the uninformed population? No. Did it prevent some states from having more influence than others? Of course not, as the EC actually CREATES the system where some States have more influence than others. What it DOES create is creating a system where each citizens vote is NOT equal....and to me, that is FAR more important.
And as Chino stated above....it actually can create scenarios where citizens might not even vote, as in the end, their vote, in a manner of speaking, won't count!
I mean seriously.....there really is no argument, based in fact, that I have seen, that justifies the Electoral College IMO (it its current form). I am more than happy to hear any, but damn it just looks like an extremely moronic application of an antiquated safeguard. JMO.