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In November 2000, as the Florida recount gripped the nation, a newly elected Democratic senator from New York took a break from an upstate victory tour to address the possibility that Al Gore could wind up winning the popular vote but losing the presidential election.
2000年11月，在佛罗里达州的重新计票吸引全国关注时，一位新当选的纽约州民主党参议员在州北部的胜选之旅中抽出时间，讲述阿尔·戈尔(Al Gore)赢得普选却输掉总统大选的可能性。
She was unequivocal. “I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people,” Hillary Clinton said, “and to me that means it’s time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president.”
她的主张很明确。“我坚信，在一个民主国家，我们应该尊重人民的意愿，”希拉里·克林顿(Hillary Clinton)说，“在我看来，那意味着，是时候取消选举团(Electoral College)制度，改为总统普选。”
Sixteen years later, the Electoral College is still standing, and Mrs. Clinton has followed Mr. Gore as the second Democratic presidential candidate in modern history to be defeated by a Republican who earned fewer votes, in his case by George W. Bush.
十六年后，选举团依然存在，克林顿成为现代历史上第二位被赢得较少票数的共和党人击败的民主党总统候选人——她之前是被乔治·W·布什(George W. Bush)击败的戈尔。
希拉里·克林顿在曼哈顿发表败选演讲，她赢得了普选，却输掉了选举人投票。
In her concession speech on Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton did not mention the popular vote, an omission that seemed to signal her desire to encourage a smooth and civil transition of power after such a divisive election. But her running mate, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, wasted little time highlighting her higher vote total than Donald J. Trump’s in introducing her.
在周三的败选演讲中，克林顿没提普选，似乎是想表明，她希望在这场严重分裂的大选之后，能够实现顺利平稳的权力交接。但她的竞选搭档、弗吉尼亚州参议员蒂姆·凯恩(Tim Kaine)在介绍她时，很快就强调她的总得票数高于唐纳德·J·特朗普(Donald J. Trump)。
And the disparity left a bitter taste in the mouths of many Democrats, whose party won the country’s national popular vote for the third consecutive election but no longer controls any branch of government.
这种不一致令很多民主党人感到痛苦，他们的政党连续第三次赢得全国普选，但他们将不再控制任何一个政府分支。
“If we really subscribe to the notion that ‘majority rules,’ then why do we deny the majority their chosen candidate?” said Jennifer M. Granholm, a former governor of Michigan.
“如果我们真的信奉‘多数原则’，那么我们为什么要拒绝多数人选择的候选人？”前密歇根州州长詹妮弗·M·格兰霍姆(Jennifer M. Granholm)说。
Mr. Trump himself has been critical of the Electoral College in the past. On the eve of the 2012 election, he called it “a disaster for a democracy” in a Twitter post. Now, after months of railing against what he called a “rigged” election, he has become the unlikely beneficiary of an electoral system that allows a candidate to win the race without winning over the most voters.
特朗普本人也曾批评过选举团制度。2012年大选前夕，他在Twitter上称它是“民主的灾难”。现在，在指责大选“被操纵”数月之后，他出人意料地成为了这种选举制度的受益者，正是这种制度允许一名未能赢得最多选票的候选人赢得大选。
None of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters have gone so far as to suggest that the popular vote tally should delegitimize Mr. Trump’s victory, and the popular vote margin in Tuesday’s election was in fact narrower than the one that separated Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore in 2000.
克林顿的支持者都没有表示，普选票数应该令特朗普的胜选失去合法性，而且，在周二的选举中，普选票数的差距实际小于布什和戈尔在2000年的差距。
But the results are already renewing calls for electoral reform. “I personally would like to see the Electoral College eliminated entirely,” said David Boies, who represented Mr. Gore in the Florida recount in 2000. “I think it’s a historical anomaly.”
但是，这些结果已经引发对选举改革的新呼吁。“我个人希望看到选举团被彻底取消，”在2000年佛罗里达州重新计票案中代表戈尔的律师戴维·博伊斯(David Boies)说，“我认为它是源自历史的异常现象。”
Defenders of the system argue that it reduces the chances of daunting nationwide recounts in close races, a scenario that Gary L. Gregg II, an Electoral College expert at the University of Louisville, said would be a “national nightmare.”
该制度的捍卫者认为，它能减少在票数接近的选举中出现可怕的全国重新计票的可能性。路易斯维尔大学(University of Louisville)的选举团专家加里·L·格雷格二世(Gary L.Gregg II)说，那将是一场“举国噩梦”。
A variety of factors informed the creation of the Electoral College, which apportions a fixed number of votes to different states based on the size of their populations. The founding fathers sought to ensure that residents in states with smaller populations were not ignored. And in an era that predated mass media and even political parties, they were concerned that average Americans would lack enough information about the candidates to make intelligent choices. So informed “electors” would stand in for them.
各种因素促成了选举团的设立。它根据人口规模给各州分配固定数量的选票。开国元勋们希望努力确保人口较少的州的居民不被忽视。在那个大众媒体甚至政党尚未出现的年代，他们担心普通的美国人对候选人的情况不够了解，无法做出明智的选择。所以让了解情况的“选举团成员”代表他们。
Above all, some historians point to the critical role that slavery played in the formation of the system. Southern delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, most prominently James Madison of Virginia, were concerned that their constituents would be outnumbered by Northerners. The Three-Fifths Compromise, however, allowed states to count each slave as three-fifths of a person — enough, at the time, to ensure a Southern majority in presidential races.
有些史学家指出，最重要的是，奴隶制在这种选举制度的形成中发挥了关键作用。1787年制宪会议(Constitutional Convention)上的南方代表，尤其是弗吉尼亚州的詹姆斯·麦迪逊(James Madison)，担心北方州的选民人数超过南方州。但是，五分之三妥协(Three-Fifths Compromise)允许各州将每个奴隶算作五分之三个人，在当时，这足以确保南方州的选民在总统大选中占多数。
On social media Wednesday, some drew connections between that history and what they perceived as an imbalance in the Electoral College that favors Republicans.
周三，在社交媒体上，有些人将那段历史与他们眼中的有利于共和党的选举团不平衡状况联系了起来。
“Electoral college will forever tip balance to rural/conservative/“white”/older voters — a concession to slave-holders originally,” the author Joyce Carol Oates wrote on Twitter.
作家乔伊斯·卡罗尔·欧茨(Joyce Carol Oates)在Twitter上写道：“选举团将永远倾向于农村/保守派/“白人”/老年选民——这源于对奴隶主的让步。”
To its critics, the Electoral College is a relic that violates the democratic principle of one person, one vote, and distorts the presidential campaign by encouraging candidates to campaign only in the relatively small number of contested states.
选举团的批评者认为，这一遗留制度违背一人一票的民主原则，鼓励候选人仅在数量相对较少的几个摇摆州进行游说，从而扭曲了总统竞选。
“I think it is intolerable for democracy,” said George C. Edwards III, a political-science professor at Texas A&M University and the author of a book on the Electoral College. “I can’t think of any justification for it, and any justification that is offered doesn’t bear scrutiny.”
“我认为，这是民主所不能容忍的，”德州农工大学(Texas A&M University)政治学教授乔治·C·爱德华兹三世(George C. Edwards III)说。他写过一本关于选举团的书。“我想不出任何正当理由可以支持其存在，所有给出的理由都经不起推敲。”
But calls to change the system, which would require a constitutional amendment, are likely to fall on deaf ears with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress.
但是，改革这一制度需要通过一项宪法修正案，而控制国会两院的共和党人很可能会对这些呼吁充耳不闻。
And though there was some momentum for reform after Mr. Gore’s defeat, it dissipated after Mr. Bush and Barack Obama won both the popular and electoral votes in 2004, 2008 and 2012.
虽然戈尔败选后出现过一些改革动力，但是布什和贝拉克·奥巴马在2004年、2008年及2012年同时在普选票和选举人票上获胜后，这些动力又消失了。
Some states have discussed a possibility that would not necessarily require amending the Constitution: jettisoning the winner-takes-all system, in which a single candidate is awarded all of a state’s electoral votes — regardless of the popular vote — and instead apportioning them to reflect the breakdown of each state’s popular vote. Two states, Maine and Nebraska, already do this. But even that approach could face challenges, said Laurence H. Tribe, a professor at Harvard Law School.
有些州讨论过一种无需修改宪法的解决方案：抛弃赢家通吃的制度——在这种制度下，不管普选票数，一名候选人获得该州的所有选举人票——而是按照每个州的普选票数分配选举人票数。缅因州和内布拉斯加州已经这样做了。但是，哈佛大学法学院(Harvard Law School)教授劳伦斯·H·特赖布(Laurence H. Tribe)说，就连那种方法也可能面临挑战。
For reformers, the best hope may lie in the so-called National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement among states to award all of their respective electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote in a given election. So far, 10 states and the District of Columbia have joined the agreement. But it will only go into effect when enough states have signed on to guarantee that the winner of the popular vote will win the election.
对改革者来说，最大的希望可能在于所谓的《全国普选票州际协定》(National Popular Vote Interstate Compact)。它是各州之间的协定，把它们各自的所有选举人票投给在普选中获胜的候选人。到目前为止，有10个州和哥伦比亚特区加入了该协定。但是，只有在足够多的州签订该协议以确保普选获胜者赢得大选之后，它才能生效。
For now, it seems, any change still remains a far-off notion.
目前，似乎任何改变都仍是遥远的概念。
“I am very mad at James Madison,” said former Representative Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. “But I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it.”
“我很生詹姆斯·麦迪逊的气，”马萨诸塞州民主党人、前众议员巴尼·弗兰克(Barney Frank)说，“但是，对此我无能为力。”
翻译：王相宜
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