Here is my understanding that the original intent of the Electoral College.

The founding fathers had a disdain for political parties, based on their observations of how British politics worked. Hence, all the structures are based on non-partisan relationships.

It was the state legislators who would vote for the electors, not the average voters (i.e. rich, white men). The state would send their electors to Washington DC. The electors would convene for a week or so to select a president and vice president. Then go back to their state legislatures.

The legal obligation (the certification of electors) that brought on January 6, 2021 was a legal slight of hand. It turns a constitutionally three-tiered indirect election into a popular vote. Had Congress, for whatever reason, not finished that task than night, there would have been legal confusion whether Trump or Biden was the president.

And the popular vote contest has been corrupted so that 48 state legislatures send all its electors in favor of the winning party, with Maine and Nebraska having a more fair selection of electors.

The EC would work a lot better in a non-partisan environment. But when overly ambitious men build alliances to better each other's electoral success, the EC and other institutions of US government are further away from democracies (or republics) than what the public facade seems to portray.