经济学人:美国民主的固有偏向(1)

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American democracy's built-in bias¹ 美国民主的固有偏向

Its elections no longer convert the popular will into control of government 美国选举不再将民意转化为政府控制力

Every system for converting votes into power has its flaws. 每个将选票转化为权力的体系都有其缺陷。

Britain suffers from an over-mighty executive; 英国因强权领袖而深受其害；

Italy from chronically² weak government; 意大利苦于长期软弱无能的政府；

Israel from small, domineering factions³. 以色列则因小而霸道的派系而遭受困局。

America, however, is plagued by the only democratic vice⁴ more troubling than the tyranny of the majority: tyranny of the minority. 然而，美国却囿于比多数人暴政更令人不安的民主弊端，即少数人暴政。

This has come about because of a growing division between rural and urban voters. 之所以发生这样的情况，是因为农村和城市选民间的分歧越来越大。

The electoral system the Founders⁵ devised, and which their successors elaborated, 开国元勋们所设计、继任者发扬的选举制度，

gives rural voters more clout⁶ than urban ones. 使得农村选民的影响力更甚于城市选民。

When the parties stood for both city and country that bias affected⁷ them both. 由于两党都是即代表城市又代表农村，所以此偏向会对两党都产生影响。

But the Republican Party has become disproportionately rural and the Democratic Party disproportionately urban. 但共和党不匀称地偏向农村，民主党不匀称地偏向城市。

That means a red vote is worth more than a blue one. 这就意味着代表共和党的红色选票价值高于代表民主党的蓝色选票。

The consequences are dramatic. 结果是戏剧性的。

Republicans hold both the houses of Congress and the White House. 共和党控制着国会两院和白宫。

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年的三次选举中，共和党候选人仅获得参议院两党选票的46%。

and they won the presidential vote in 2016 with 49%. 并在2016年以49%的比例赢得总统大选。

Our voting model predicts that, for Democrats⁸ to have a better than 50% chance of winning control of the House in November’s mid-term elections, 投票模型预测，民主党若想要11月中期选举赢得众议院控制权的可能性超过50%，

they will need to win the popular vote by around seven percentage points. 就需要7个点的优势赢得普选。

To put that another way, we think the Republicans have a 0.01% chance of winning the popular vote for the House. 换句话说，我们认为共和党有0.01%的机会赢得众议院普选。

But we estimate their chance of securing a majority of congressmen is about a third. 但我们估计，民主党赢得众议院普选的机会有三分之一。

In no other two-party system does the party that receives the most votes routinely find itself out of power. 在任何其他两党制体系中，经常获得多数票的政党都会获得权力。

 

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