It is a republic. As such, our central government attempts to honor both the equal representation of states and representation based on population. Now, at our nation's conception, this was the only sensible system, as many of the original states had been chartered for very different purposes. A small state that allowed Catholicism, for example, would've been terrorized by it's larger Protestant neighbors otherwise. Modern America bears little resemblance to baroque colonial politics.
States are largely ephemeral, and are only differentiated in a few minor local policies.
Although our population isn't entirely distributed, its gradients tend to follow geographic and not political boundaries. Of course, in colonial times this would be the equivalent of being a citizen of NATO or the UN first and foremost, so it is clear that vast changes have occurred. These changes are sadly not reflected in the voting laws. Okay, so let's pretend we're a democracy for a second. Without being concerned with the notion of being a republic of free and independent states, it is pretty clear that the electoral college system stinks for simple mathematical reasons.