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Actually, guys, the system in both parties varies by state. Dems don't have any winner-takes-all states, but the proportional representation is done differently in different states. I believe some allocate by overall vote total in the state, while others allocate based on a district-by-district vote. Reps don't allocate completely by winner-takes-all; again, it varies by state. Some states have a winner-takes-all system based on the overall state totals, some have a form of proportional representation.
The electoral college is a completely different creature. Sneer if you like, but the thing was set up to make sure that the large states wouldn't always dominate the selection process, which would yield a president acceptable simultaneously to both a large segment of the population and a large proportion of the country geographically. Like most of the rest of the American system of government, it was deliberately designed to be complicated. You can argue about whether it was a good idea to do it that way, but what the founders were trying to accomplish is actually fairly well known.
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