Not that I like the implications, but IMHO when the Constitution says that. . . they were isolating the presidency from the popular vote. The Electors were to elect the president, not the people. It would have been easy for them to have assigned the role to the people at large, and they did not do it. The electors are chosen by public ballot in each state, but that is by state law. The States elect the POTUS, via the mechanism of the Electoral College.
- Article II Section 1:
- Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
But that mechanism involves the “appointment” of people who cast ballots, not the casting of ballots by the states themselves.
The thinking of the framers is IMHO illustrated by the fall-back position in the event that the Electors don’t vote in a majority for any one candidate. Namely, the House of Representatives - with each state delegation casting a single vote - elects the POTUS. In such case, there is no direct link between the popular vote and the vote for POTUS. That would be a great way to elect a Republican POTUS - I haven’t researched the question, but I venture to suggest that a majority of the state delegations in the House are majority Republican. Note that CA, NY, and IL are cancelled out by AK, OK, and AL in that voting scheme.
Now that would cause a real uproar among the Demos!