It's not a pure democracy, nor is it striving to be one. However, the problem is that you view the US as just one big country, which is technically true, but it's not nearly that simple. The situation is that we are dealing with states that are effectively their own little countries in many ways (I do believe California is something like the 7th biggest economy in the world by itself). If you make it decided by popular vote, only 3-5 states would really matter. The rest of those states would be subject to their choices. The electoral college gives a "check" to that power in a very minor way. The number of votes a state gets is still subject to it's population.If not for the electoral college, the US would not exist. It could stand some updating imo tho.