每日一篇:《经济学人》读译参考 Day166

英语阅读能力依靠什么？必然是词汇的积累，但，仅仅是词汇的积累是不够了，更应该了解英语句式，不同句型所表达意义。如何培养自己的阅读语感呢？那么就跟着聚英聚创考研信息网小编每天学一点英语，一起为考研筑起坚实的地基。阅读是需要积累的，就像我们需要经常和人沟通才会促进我们的表达能力一样~小伙伴跟着小编一起，每天坚持打卡，培养英语阅读能力及语感，了解文章一些经典词汇的用法。

经济学人:美国民主的固有偏向(3)

 

Voting reform

投票改革

 

American democracy's built-in bias

美国民主的固有偏向

 

Some may ask why Democrats do not return to positions that appeal to rural voters.Recall how Mr Obama won the presidency opposing gay marriageand Bill Clinton built a coalition in the centre-ground.But rancorous political disputes—over guns, abortion and climate change—split so neatly along urban-rural lines that parties and voters increasingly sort themselves into urban-rural tribes.

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有些人可能会问，为什么民主党不去吸引农村选民。回想一下，奥巴马是如何在反对同性结婚的情况下还赢得总统大选，而比尔·克林顿又如何以中立立场建立起联合政府。但充满敌意的政治争端——控枪、堕胎、气候变化——却齐整地将城市和农村割裂开来，以至于越来越多的党派和选民自动将自己归于城市或农村阵营。

 

Gerrymandering and party primaries reward extremists, and ensure that, once elected, they seldom need fear for their jobs.The incentives to take extreme positions are very powerful.Bitter partisanship, ineffective federal government and electoral bias poison politics and are hard to fix.Changing the constitution is hard—and rightly so.

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“杰利蝾螈”（专为某方选举利益设计的选区划分方式）和党内初选都鼓励极端主义者，并且确保一旦当选，就很少需要为工作忧心。采取极端立场的动机是非常强的。激烈的党派之争、低效的联邦政府和选举偏向性毒害了政治，而且很难修复。修改宪法很困难——也理当如此。

 

Yet the voting system for Congress is easier to reform than most people realise,because the constitution does not stipulate what it should be. Congress last voted to change the rules in 1967.The aim should be to give office-seekers a reason to build bridges with opponents rather than torch them.If partisanship declined as a result, so would pressure on voters to stick to their tribe.That could make both parties competitive in rural and urban areas again, helping to restore majority rule.

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然而，改革投票制度比大多数人想的要更容易，因为宪法没有规定投票制度应该是什么样的。国会上一次投票修改规则是在1967年。这样做的目的应该是给参选者一个与反对者建立联系的理由，而不是全盘推翻。如果党派偏向因此而减少，那么选民各执一派站队的压力也同样会减少。这样会让两方党派再次在农村和城市地区竞争，从而帮助恢复多数决定原则。

 

One option, adopted in Maine this year and already proposed in a bill in Congress for use nationwide,is "ranked-choice voting" (RCV), in which voters list candidates in order of preference.After a first count, the candidate with the least support is eliminated,and his or her ballots are reallocated to those voters'second choice.This continues until someone has a majority.Candidates need second- and third-choice votes from their rivals'supporters,so they look for common ground with their opponents.

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缅因州今年采用的一种选择，已经在国会法案中提出以便在全国范围内采纳，这就是“排序复选制”（RCV），这个规则规定选民按照喜好列出候选人。在第一轮计票后，获得支持最少的候选人遭到淘汰，而其所获选票将重新分配给投票给他/她的选民的第二选择。如此循环，直到一位候选人得到最多选票。候选人需从他们的竞争对手那里争取第二轮和第三轮的投票，因此候选人会和竞争对手找共同点。

 

Another option is multi-member districts, which were once commonplace and still exist in the Senate.Because they aggregate groups of voters, they make gerrymandering ineffective.Voting reform is not the whole answer to partisanship and built-in bias, but it would help.It is hard, but not outlandish.To maintain the trust of all Americans, the world's oldest constitutional democracy needs to reform itself.

译文

另一个选择是复数选区制，这是曾一度流行、现仍存参议院的制度。因为选民人数众多，所以“杰利蝾螈”的策略失效。改革投票制不会完全改变党派偏见与其内在偏向性，但会起到一定作用。尽管改革步履维艰，但并非天方夜谭。为保有所有美国人的信任，世界上最古老的宪政民主体制需自我革新。

 

注释

1.appeals to 有吸引力

His social conservativism appeals to many evangelical Christian voters

他的社会保守主义吸引了许多福音派基督教选民。来源于《VOA》

 

2.sort into 分类放入；分门别类

She's sort of into pretension and that's unattractive

她有点自命不凡，这太不吸引人了。来源于《NEWYORKER》

 

3.stick to 坚持

She should stick to the more adventurously upbeat formula

她应该坚持更大胆乐观的公式。来源于《BBC》

 

4.common ground 共同基础

But they always found common ground in creative projects

他们总是在创意项目中找到共同点。来源于《WSJ》

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