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Hamilton laid out the purpose of the Electoral College in Federalist #68

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp

It has nothing at all to do with rural vs. urban votes, nor is it in anyway symbolic.

The Electors are not symbolic.

It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.

The Electors will be better suited to choosing the President than the People as a whole:

It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

It is better that the People choose Electors, rather than the President:

The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes.

The primary purpose of the Electoral College is to prevent foreign influence in the election of the President:

Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?

Again, the People do not vote for President, they pick Electors.

the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of senators and representatives of such State in the national government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President.

The secondary purpose of the Electoral College is to prevent the Office of the President to be filled by someone unfit for that office, in particular someone skilled at the "little arts of popularity."

The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.

There is absolutely nothing about the Electoral College which is meant to address questions of population distribution, equality between the States, nor is it in any way intended to merely be a rubber stamp.

It has obviously become this over time, but for a person to be - on the one hand - a strict constructionist, and - on the other - opposed to the Electoral College choosing anyone other than the winner of their State would be a rank hypocrite.