Maine governor praises the Electoral College for keeping white people in power

[Fenixgoon]

That’s a good question. I couldn’t find a straight forward answer on how that came to be. Before parties chose them it seems they were selected by state legislators or by vote by the people. This changed in the mid 1800’s when most states went to what we have now.

Interestingly the most common constitutional amendment is one that deals with changing the electoral college.

I believe one would legally make the argument under first amendment freedom of association. The parties are just collections of people that are using a particular name/label to quickly identify themselves and their beliefs. There nothing stopping any individual from running independently. But because parties end up with a de facto monopoly on resources, that almost guarantees that their candidates will be the ones to win (ignoring other factors like FTTP in presidential races)