What is the difference between a direct democracy and the electoral college system?

Answer 1

There are a number of differences, but if we assume that you are exclusively referring to the election for the US President, the difference comes down to how the votes are weighed. A direct election for US President would result in the election of that president regardless of where those votes came from. In the electoral college system, each state is considered to have its own vote for the US President. Once the US President has won a particular state, all of the state's electoral votes (based on the sum total of senators and representatives from that state) go to that Presidential candidate. It does not matter if the US President won that state by a few votes or a landslide, he gets the whole state. (Nebraska is the lone exception to this policy). The benefit of the electoral system is that it forces Presidents to take small states seriously, but the advantage of the direct election system is that every vote actually matters, not just those in swing states.