This article about the electoral college originally appeared in the November 1996 issue of Discover. Some of our readers thought it would be a good idea to feature it again this election year. We agree. The editors When you cast your vote this month, you're not directly electing the president--you're electing members of the electoral college. They elect the president. An archaic, unnecessary system? Mathematics shows, says one concerned American, that by giving your vote to another, you're ensuring the future of our democracy. "One morning at two o'clock," Alan Natapoff recalls, "I realized that I was the only...