The US Electoral College

美国选举人团制度

林晓洁 供稿

The United States is the only country that selects its president using a system called the Electoral College. With the 2020 US presidential election becoming a hotly debated topic recently, let’s learn more about the Electoral College, including its process, significance and historical origin.

美国是全球唯一采用“选举人团制度”选举总统的国家。当前，2020美国大选已成为热门话题，让我们一起来了解选举团的流程、意义以及它的历史来源吧!

What is the Electoral College? 

什么是选举人团制度

The Electoral College is a unique system by which the president and vice president of the United States are chosen. It was devised by the framers of the United States Constitution. The Electoral College was never intended to pick the “perfect” president, but to provide a method of election that is feasible, desirable, and consistent with a republican form of government.

选举人团制度是美国特有的一种选举总统及副总统的方式。它是由美国宪法的立宪者制定的，其目的并不是选出一名最“完美”的总统，而是设立一种能够与共和政体相互配合的灵活选举制度。

How does the Electoral College work?

选举人团制度是如何运作的？

Every four years, the system calls for the creation of a temporary group consisting of 538 electors. Each state gets the same number of delegates as their Congressional representatives. Technically, it is these electors, but not the American people, who vote for the president. In modern elections, the first candidate to get 270 of the 538 total electoral votes wins the White House. Most States have a “winner-take-all” system that awards all electors to the Presidential candidate who wins the state's popular vote. This is also why, every so often, someone wins the presidency without winning the popular vote on a national scale.

每隔四年，来自各州的538名代表组成选举人团，各州代表人数与该州在国会的参、众议员人数相等。严格来说，正是由这些选举人而非普通选民，投票选出美国总统。在现代大选中，首先得到270张选举人票的总统候选人将赢得选举。大多数州实行“赢家通吃”的策略，赢得某个州普选的候选人将获得该州全部的选举人票。这也是许多总统候选人在全国普选总票数落后的情况下，仍能竞选成功的原因。

How was the Electoral College created？

选举团制度的来源

Historians have suggested a variety of reasons for the adoption of the Electoral College, including concerns about the separation of powers and the relationship between the executive and legislative branches, the balance between small and large states, slavery, and the perceived dangers of direct democracy. In fact, Electoral College is a compromise between a popular vote by citizens and a vote in Congress.

历史学家们提出了一系列关于美国设立选举人团的原因。其中包括对权力分立、行政权与立法权的平衡、大小州的平衡、奴隶制以及直接民主的潜在危险等不同方面的考量。事实上，选举人团制度是公民普选以及国会选举之间的一种折中方案。 

At the time of the Philadelphia convention, no other country in the world directly elected its chief executive, so the delegates were wading into uncharted territory. Further complicating the task was a deep-rooted distrust of executive power. After all, the fledgling nation had just fought its way out from under a tyrannical king and overreaching colonial governors. They didn’t want another despot on their hands.

在费城制宪会议召开之时，世界上没有任何一个国家的首脑是通过直接选举产生的。因此，制宪者们是在开辟一条全新的发展道路。他们对行政权力根深蒂固的不信任，使得总统选举的流程更加复杂。毕竟，这个羽翼未丰的国家刚刚摆脱了残暴的国君和蛮横的殖民总督统治，不希望自己手中又出现一个暴君。

One group of delegates felt strongly that Congress shouldn’t have anything to do with picking the president. There’re simply too many opportunities for chummy corruption between the executive and legislative branches.

一些制宪代表强烈认为国会不应与总统选举有任何关系。因为当行政部门和立法部门的关系过于密切时，腐败就容易产生。

Another camp was dead set against letting the people elect the president by a straight popular vote. First, they thought 18th-century voters lacked the resources to be fully informed about the candidates, especially in rural outposts. Second, they feared a headstrong “democratic mob” steering the country astray. And third, a populist president appealing directly to the people could command dangerous amounts of power. 

而另一些代表则坚决反对让人民直接投票选出总统。首先，他们认为18世纪的选民，尤其是农村边远地区的人民，缺乏对总统候选人的充分了解。其次，他们担心部分顽固的“民主暴民”会将国家引向歧途。第三，一个深得民心的民粹主义总统可能会掌握过多的权力，将国家带入危险。

Out of those drawn-out debates finally came with a compromise based on the idea of electoral intermediaries. These intermediaries wouldn’t be picked by Congress or elected by the people. Instead, the states would each appoint independent “electors” who would cast the actual ballots for the presidency.

经过旷日持久的辩论，制宪者们最终达成了一项基于“选举中间人”的妥协方案。这些选举中间人不由国会挑选或人民选举产生。相反，各州将各自任命独立的“选举人”，由他们实际投票选举总统。

But determining exactly how many electors to assign to each state was another sticking point. Here the divide was between slave-owning and non-slave-owning states. It was the same issue that plagued the distribution of seats in the House of Representatives: should or shouldn’t the Founders include slaves in counting a state’s population?

但是，每个州应该分配多少选举人票也是一个关键问题。分歧主要存在于奴隶主州和非奴隶主州，这和困扰众议院席位分配的问题是一样的: 一个州的人口该不该将奴隶算上?

The result was the controversial “Three-Fifths Compromise,” in which enslaved black people would be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of allocating representatives and electors and calculating federal taxes. The compromise ensured that Southern states would ratify the Constitution and gave Virginia, home to more than 200,000 slaves, a quarter of the total electoral votes required to win the presidency.

最后的结果是极具争议性的“五分之三妥协”。在该妥协中，黑人奴隶被算作五分之三的个人，以分配代表和选举人席位以及计算联邦税收。这一妥协确保了南方各州批准宪法，并使拥有20多万奴隶的弗吉尼亚州获得四分之一的总选举人票。

Why does US still use the Electoral College today?

为什么美国还在使用选举团制度

So why does the Electoral College still exist, despite its contentious origins and awkward fit with modern politics? 

选举团制度的起源极具争议，且与现代政治格格不入。为什么美国至今还选用这种制度呢?

Fundamentally, the party in power typically benefits from the existence of the Electoral College, and the minority party has little chance of changing the system because a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds supermajority in Congress plus ratification by three-fourths of the states. Plus, the old-school electoral system has its benefits. With the Electoral College, for example, there’s no chance of a run-off election or a protracted national recount. That will make things much easier. The complicated situation we have witnessed so far during the 2020 presidential election, however, put a question mark on the fairness and validity of the system.

究其根本，这是因为执政党通常会从现存的选举人团制度中获益，而少数党几乎没有机会改变这一制度，因为宪法修正案需要国会三分之二的绝对多数以及四分之三州的批准。此外，老式的选举制度也有它的好处。例如，有了选举团制度，就不用再进行决胜选举，也无需进行旷日持久的全国重新计票。这就为总统选举省下了许多麻烦。然而，2020年我们所目睹的选举之复杂情形，又给该制度的公平性和效度打上了问号。

【Vocabulary】

1. fledgling adj. 新的；无经验的
2. despot n. 专制君主，暴君；独裁者
3. chummy adj. 亲密的；合得来的
4. populist adj. 民粹主义的
5. astray adv. 误入歧途地；迷途地
6. headstrong adj. 任性的；顽固的；刚愎的
7. intermediary n. 中间人；仲裁者；调解者
8. protracted adj. 延长的；拖延的；持久的