Lets get rid of primary elections when electing our president

[Angrboda]

The Electoral College restores some of the weight in the political balance that large states (by population) lose by virtue of the mal-apportionment of the Senate decreed in the Constitution. This may seem paradoxical, given that electoral votes are weighted in favor of less populous states. Wyoming, the least populous state, contains only about one-sixth of 1 percent of the U.S. population, but its three electors (of whom two are awarded only because Wyoming has two senators like every other state) give it slightly more than one-half of 1 percent of total electoral votes. But winner-take-all makes a slight increase in the popular vote have a much bigger electoral-vote payoff in a large state than in a small one. The popular vote was very close in Florida; nevertheless Obama, who won that vote, got 29 electoral votes. A victory by the same margin in Wyoming would net the winner only 3 electoral votes. So, other things being equal, a large state gets more attention from presidential candidates in a campaign than a small states does. And since presidents and senators are often presidential candidates, large states are likely to get additional consideration in appropriations and appointments from presidents and senators before as well as during campaigns, offsetting to some extent the effects of the malapportioned Senate on the political influence of less populous states.

In Defense of the Electoral College

If the electoral college does, as this Slate article suggests, favor big states over smaller ones, what is the justification for apportioning the smaller states representatives by virtue of their statehood? If the EC already favors big states, why not simply apportion electors according to state population, but otherwise keep things as they are with a winner-takes-all approach for each state?

[Roady, this is your chance to wow us all with your greater knowledge of why we should keep the electoral college as it is.]