Why do the states attempt to emulate a popular vote for president?

Question

There seems to be lots of discussion about why oh why do we have an Electoral College in the U.S.A. However, given the fact that we do have an Electoral College, the really seemingly odd thing, IMHO, is that all 50 states have a more-or-less similar institution that essentially relinquishes the state legislature's power by attempting to emulate a popular election. Article 2, Section 1, Clause 2 of the constitution says:

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...

This seems to permit a great amount of leeway to the legislatures of the various states to figure out all manner of interesting ways to appoint electors. Yet, every single state holds a popular vote for the choice of electors. To be sure, the rules vary slightly, but the electors could, for example, be voted on by the legislature during session, or chosen out of a hat or...?

I would have imagined that having been given the power to choose the electors, the state legislatures would guard this privilege fiercely, and yet they seem to just hand it to the people for no obvious reason.

For what reasons (legal, political, cultural, societal, psychological, historical or whatever) do the states all choose their electors via a popular voting mechanism?

_{* This question seems to be somewhat similar, but has elicited answers mostly be along the lines of "because that's how states have decided to do it." My question is about why states have decided to do it that way.}

Answer 1

Practical reality prevents that from happening.

While a state legislature has broad leeway on the subject of presidential electors, that legislature is beholden to the people who voted it in.

And if a state legislature were to change to selecting presidential electors by their vote and not the people's vote, that legislature would leave office in the next election cycle, in favor of legislators who committed to reverting back to popular vote.

Because such an action would essentially be restricting citizen input on the selection of a president. That would motivate a lot of citizens to take a keen interest in the next state election.

Answer 2

In The United States, the rise of Democracy was a reaction to monarchism. Despite how it ended up being executed on the ground, the framers held that the voice of the people should be the dominant authority.

James Madison, as quoted in the proceedings of the constitutional convention:

He was disposed [because of concern of corruption in the selection of the executive branch if selected by society's elite] to refer the appointment to some other source. The people at large was in his opinion the fittest in itself. It would be as likely as any that could be devised to produce an Executive Magistrate of distinguished Character. The people generally could only know & vote for some Citizen whose merits had rendered him an object of general attention & esteem.

Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 68, states "the sense of the people should operate in the choice."

The existence of the Electoral College was a compromise with slave states since, at the time, popular vote directly would profoundly benefit non-slave states in terms of political clout.

It should not be surprising at all, then, that the various states decided to follow these recommendations and, within the constraints of the Constitution that there needed to be a slate of electors chosen, instead of a candidate for president directly, otherwise left this measure to popular vote.

At the time, Senators were not voted on by the people, but instead selected by the state legislatures - a practice which would continue until eventually, in 1914, Senators also were now elected by popular vote in all states.

The concept of the popular vote holds a special place of significance in United States political thought and history - that the electors are between the voters and the choice was not considered the ideal, even at the time, but a necessary bargain struck to ensure ratification.

In short, states choose the popular vote to select their electors, because this is how the entire system was envisioned from the start by the framers.