The purpose of the electoral college is to elect the president and vice-president of the United States. It is made up of the electors from each state. They do not actually meet as a body, but send their votes to the President of the Senate.
"The Electoral College is a process, not a place. The founding fathers established it in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens."
The purpose of the Electoral College is to vote for the president.
What was the purpose of the Electoral College when the Framers wrote the Constitution?
The electoral college serves only one purpose and that is to elect the president and vice president every four years. The president is, of course, the head of the executive branch of the US government.
The electoral vote of every state accurately reflects the popular vote within that state. Therefore, every elector in the Electoral College is expected to cast the electoral vote for the candidate who won the popular vote in that elector's state.
In the context of India, the President is elected by an Electoral College that consists of members of both houses of Parliament (Members of Parliament or MPs) and members of the state legislative assemblies (Members of Legislative Assemblies or MLAs). This Electoral College is formed for the purpose of electing the President of India.
The purpose of the electoral college is to ' break the tie' between two opposing parties. Let's say, there are two candidates running for the presidency. For the sake of argument we'll call them George W. Bush and Al Gore. After all the campaigning is done and all the votes have been tallied and counted, we find that both candidates seem to have about the same number of popular votes. Basically, we have a tie. This is when the electoral college steps in to cast their votes. It is their votes that will be the deciding factor as to which candidate will win the nomination for the presidency.
Electors vote before the total tally of popular votes is known because they are appointed to represent their respective states in the Electoral College. The purpose of the Electoral College is to formally elect the President and Vice President of the United States. Each state determines its own electors based on the popular vote in that state, so electors vote based on the outcome within their state, regardless of the national popular vote tally.
Political parties have most dramatically reshaped the electoral college from its intended purpose. A result of party practices were the use of the electoral college as a "rubber stamp" for the popular vote.
The electoral college determines who wins the presidency. For a person to win the presidency they need to get the majority of the electoral votes which I believe is 181. The electors for a state will in most cases vote with the popular vote for the state and whoever that is will win the state and get all of the electoral votes that are available for the state.
After. The electors are supposed to vote in accordance with the popular vote in their state (or whatever method has been specified, but in practice it amounts to "winner take all" with respect to the popular vote results in nearly every state), so it would be impossible for them to vote until the popular vote results are known.