That's great in theory, but it's long dead in practice. I went to high school in the 1950s and 60s. Even back in 8th grade Social Studies class (which I guess they call "Civics" today) we were taught that the United States is a democracy. What they DIDN'T teach us was about the electoral college (which I still don't understand), or about the fact that senators were originally elected by the state legislatures rather than by direct popular vote.
Electoral college is relatively easy. Okay, Representative government, IE government by representation. Back in the day, election periods were shorter than today, and without mass media, odds were that you
might get to see the major candidates ONCE during an election cycle if you lived in a big city(or were willing to travel), and remember, most didn't live in the big cities.
So, you end up voting for somebody to pick a president for you. Electoral college. One representative per representative - 2 for the senators(who were selected by state governments at first) and however many representatives you had(population based), which were directly elected.
The senate was supposed to be the 'snooty' side, equivalent to the house of lords. They figured that it'd be more professional, being picked by each state government. They were to represent the state's interests in the federal government, while the representatives were to represent the people.
Anyways, back to the college. So the college goes to Washington DC, and they do their voting for president. While bound for a given candidate, theoretically speaking, if the current candidates died, which was much more common back then, or turned into raving loonies, the college could select somebody else, and we'd still have a president when the time came, without having to hold another election.
