The Electoral college makes it harder to cheat---we need to keep them and dump you.
How does it make it harder to cheat? If anything, it makes it easier. All you have to do is influence a couple of swing states instead of the whole country.
More to the point, if a guy becomes President without a mandate from the people, It's almost always a bad thing. It's only happened five times in our history. Three times (JQ Adams, Benjamin Harrison and Trump) the voters corrected the mistake the next election. Once we didn't because there was a war on. (GW Bush) and once, the guy had the good sense not to run because even he knew he was a fraud. (Rutherford B. Hayes)
Guys who win without also winning the popular vote are often the worst presidents in our history.