The Electoral College was created to protect the slave states. The founders who wrote the Constitution knew that direct elections would be a problem, because there were so few qualified voters in the south.

Electoral College—a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech—instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count.

Quoted from The Troubling Reason the Electoral College Exists by Akhil Reed Amar.

If I can vote directly for Mayor, Governor, Congress Representative, and Senator, I damn well should be able to vote directly for President!