text: When youvote for a presidentiial canidate you're actually voting for a slate of electors. The electoral college avoids the problem of elections in which no candidate recives a majority of the votes cast.  Nixon and Clinton both had only a 43 percent chanceplurality of the popular votes, while winning a majority in the electoral college. There is pressure for run-off elections when no canidate wins a majority of the votes cast; that pressure, which would greatly complicate the presidential election process, is reduced by the Electoral College, which invariably prodeuces a clear winner.