We live in a representational republic, not a democracy. The electoral college is a safeguard to prevent the "tyranny of the majority" that destroys most pure democracies.

Also, we are a federation (republic) of states, which is a very resilient decentralized form of government. We have no national or federal elections per se, they are the sum total of 50 individual state elections, etc.

The founding fathers were definitely stable geniuses...