electoral college elects president, so why vote?

I dont know much about how the system works. But why do people even vote if the electoral college ends up deciding who wins?

 

We vote for who is in the electoral college. Then, the electoral college goes and votes for who they want. Basically.you are not voting for the obama or romney, but you are voting for a list of people they picked that will be in the electoral college and who will vote for them.

 

The delegates must by law vote for whoever wins the popular vote in that state (most states are winner take all). So voting tells the delegates who they legally have to vote for.

 

The electoral colleges don't need to honour their vote but they usually do, you vote for them expecting them to honour their pledge to vote for their party leader (which logically they will do)

 

Ive never heard they legally had to, not saying it isnt true, ive just never heard that. I was told that twice iirc delegates have changed their minds and voted the other way though.

 

^this. The possibility that you can also lose popular vote, yet still win electoral votes (and therefore the whole campaign) is because it's possible to have MORE people vote in smaller states by population.
Say:
California pop. votes 20,000,000 for obama
New york pop. votes 25,000,000 for romney

HOWEVER
California electoral votes = 55 for obama
New york electoral votes = 46 for romney

THEREFORE
Obama is in the lead with electoral votes, but not popular votes.

These numbers are entirely inaccurate (besides the electoral vote numbers), but you get the idea.

 

In some states they have to. In others the party that wins just gets to pick them.