評論
打印
Voting reform
投票改革
American democracy's built-in bias
美國民主的固有偏向
Its elections no longer convert the popular will into control of government
美國選舉不再將民意轉化為政府控制力
Every system for converting votes into power has its flaws.
每個將選票轉化為權力的體系都有其缺陷。
Britain suffers from an over-mighty executive;
英國因強權領袖而深受其害；
Italy from chronically weak government;
意大利苦于長期軟弱無能的政府；
Israel from small, domineering factions.
以色列則因小而霸道的派系而遭受困局。
America, however, is plagued by the only democratic vice more troubling than the tyranny of the majority: tyranny of the minority.
然而，美國卻囿于比多數人暴政更令人不安的民主弊端，即少數人暴政。
This has come about because of a growing division between rural and urban voters.
之所以發生這樣的情況，是因為農村和城市選民間的分歧越來越大。
The electoral system the Founders devised, and which their successors elaborated,
開國元勛們所設計、繼任者發揚的選舉制度，
gives rural voters more clout than urban ones.
使得農村選民的影響力更甚于城市選民。
When the parties stood for both city and country that bias affected them both.
由于兩黨都是即代表城市又代表農村，所以此偏向會對兩黨都產生影響。
But the Republican Party has become disproportionately rural and the Democratic Party disproportionately urban.
但共和黨不勻稱地偏向農村，民主黨不勻稱地偏向城市。
That means a red vote is worth more than a blue one.
這就意味著代表共和黨的紅色選票價值高于代表民主黨的藍色選票。
The consequences are dramatic.
結果是戲劇性的。
Republicans hold both the houses of Congress and the White House.
共和黨控制著國會兩院和白宮。
But in the three elections in 2012-16 their candidates got just 46% of the two-party vote for the Senate,
但在2012年至2016年的三次選舉中，共和黨候選人僅獲得參議院兩黨選票的46%。
and they won the presidential vote in 2016 with 49%.
并在2016年以49%的比例贏得總統大選。
Our voting model predicts that, for Democrats to have a better than 50% chance of winning control of the House in November’s mid-term elections,
投票模型預測，民主黨若想要11月中期選舉贏得眾議院控制權的可能性超過50%，
they will need to win the popular vote by around seven percentage points.
就需要7個點的優勢贏得普選。
To put that another way, we think the Republicans have a 0.01% chance of winning the popular vote for the House.
換句話說，我們認為共和黨有0.01%的機會贏得眾議院普選。
But we estimate their chance of securing a majority of congressmen is about a third.
但我們估計，民主黨贏得眾議院普選的機會有三分之一。
In no other two-party system does the party that receives the most votes routinely find itself out of power.
在任何其他兩黨制體系中，經常獲得多數票的政黨都會獲得權力。
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