Levitsky and Ziblatt claim that the founders “sought…an elected president…reflecting the will of the people,” but they wanted “some kind of built-in screening device.” So, they invented the Electoral College. Pages 39-40. Made up of “locally prominent men in each state” it would be the “original gatekeeper.”
As historians have amply shown, this version of history is, to put a word for it, wrong. Some among the drafters strongly preferred direct election of the president. The slave and small state alliance had won inequitable, anti-democratic power in both the House and Senate, and they did not want anything short of this unfairness to be on their side when it came to choosing the president. No one thought that the electors would “screen.” Instead they would negotiate compromises among the different states, probably fail to produce a majority of electors for anyone, and then kick the process to the House.
This good book’s description of the history of the Electoral College is not one of the authors’ best moments.