Of course the Electoral College selects the President and Vice-President. They can't just pull someones name out of their ass.
yes, they can, and they have. They're then called faithless electors. And for most states, it's perfectly legal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_electorbut the people who get elected to the electoral college are party members and will follow the wishes of the party if they want to keep their jobs.
If a Presidential candidate dies before the election, and the people are still stupid enough to vote for a dead person, then it would be the Vice-Presidential candidate, that would be bumped up to the President position , for the Electoral College consideration.
Nope.
http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/20431Filling a Vacancy: From the Nomination to the Electoral College Vote
Both the Republican and the Democratic parties have rules in their bylaws governing how to fill the vacancy. The Party Chair calls a meeting of the National Committee, and the Committee members at the meeting vote to fill the vacancy on the ticket. A candidate must receive a majority of the votes to win the party's nod.
The same process would happen if the vacancy were to occur after the general election but before the Electoral College voting. If a vacancy should occur on the winning ticket, it would then be the party's responsibility to fill it and provide a candidate for whom their electors could vote.
But the electors can select who ever they want.