American democracy's built-in bias 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 chronically weak government; 意大利苦于长期软弱无能的政府；

Israel from small, domineering factions. 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 vice 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 Founders 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 clout 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 affected 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 Democrats 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。