Electoral College

Ok, this is my last politics-related post, I promise. One thing I have never understood is the Electoral College. It is probably the leading cause for my desire to return to high school to retake history classes and this time actually learn what we were studying. I can very specifically remember learning about the Electoral College in Mr. Anderson's American Government class. I was able to repeat what it apparently was all about, but it meant (and still means) nothing to me. Tuesday night Christopher tried to explain it yet again. He said, best as he understands it was designed to limit the amount of influence a particular state could have on the election. For instance, because California has the largest population, their state would have the most votes. So, that made sense for about 5 seconds. Why? Because the votes a state gets in the Electoral College is based on the number of congressman and state reps that a state has. The number of congressman and state reps is based on the size of the population of the state. Do you see where I am going with this? So instead of being 36,457,549 of the United States' 299,398,484 total population, or roughly 12% (based on 2006 figures), they are 55 of the 538 representatives of the Electoral College, or roughly 10%. Now, I ask you... is that 2% really going to make a difference? I mean, who really thinks that 36 million people are really going to vote in California alone? Let's look at Michigan... As of 2006, they have 10,095,643 of the US total population, or 3.3%. In the Electoral College they have 17 votes, or 3.1%. Hmmm... Perhaps vote counters just like the simplicity of the smaller numbers? And here is the best part - according to Wikipedia, "The Electoral College consists of 538 popularly elected representatives who formally select the President and Vice President. In 2008, it will make this selection on December 15." December 15! Not November 4. So, doesn't that mean all the celebrations that occurred on Tuesday were a little early? Or does the Electoral College vote really not mean anything. As you can see, I am really confused by this. If you want to read about this yourself, go here. And if you can explain any of this to me, by all means...