演講MP3+雙語文稿:美國的投票選舉制該如何優(yōu)化？

聽力課堂TED音頻欄目主要包括TED演講的音頻MP3及中英雙語文稿，供各位英語愛好者學習使用。本文主要內(nèi)容為演講MP3+雙語文稿:美國的投票選舉制該如何優(yōu)化？，希望你會喜歡！

【演講者及介紹】Tiana Epps-Johnson

公民參與冠軍Tiana Epps-Johnson致力于使美國的選舉制度更加現(xiàn)代化、包容和安全。

【演講主題】將美國的投票制度帶入21世紀需要什么？

【中英文字幕】

翻譯者psjmz mz 校對者sun leying

00:13

OK, I want to take a moment to let each of you think to yourselves about the last time you sent or received a fax.

我想讓你們每個人花點時間回想 上次發(fā)傳真或收到傳真是什么時候。

00:22

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

00:23

Well, for me, it was this morning, because one piece of my work is making sure that everyone in the US has the information that they need to make decisions about the candidates on their ballot. And collecting that information from the local government offices responsible for maintaining it means sending and receiving a lot of faxes.

就我而言，在這個早晨，因為我的工作之一就是 確保美國的每一個人 都有他們需要的信息 來決定他們選票上的候選人。從負責維護這些 的地方政府部門收集這些信息 意味著要發(fā)送和接收大量傳真。

00:45

Voting is one of our most fundamental rights. It's one of the most tangible ways that each and every one of us can shape our communities. And as we enter this fourth industrial revolution, where technology is changing everything around us, you would think, with something as important as the right to vote, that we would have the most modern, secure, inclusive system that could exist ... But we don't. When we look at comparable democracies, the US has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the world. We have a system where even the most persistent voters come up against exhausting barriers. A system where 20th-century technology -- like fax machines -- and outdated practices stand in the way of full, vibrant participation. In US presidential elections, turnout hovers around 60 percent. The numbers are even lower for local elections. That means that nearly 40 percent of Americans aren't voters. That's nearly 100 million people.

投票是我們最基本的權(quán)利。這是我們每一個人 塑造我們的社區(qū) 最切實可行的方式之一。而隨著我們進入這第四次工業(yè)革命，技術(shù)正在改變我們周遭的一切，你可能會想，像投票權(quán) 這樣重要的事情，應(yīng)該有最現(xiàn)代，最安全，最包容的系統(tǒng)… 但我們沒有。當我們看看類似的民主國家，美國是世界上的投票率 最低的國家之一。即便是最堅持不懈的選民，也會因為系統(tǒng)的各種障礙 而精疲力竭。這個還用20世紀技術(shù)的系統(tǒng)—— 如傳真機—— 以及其他過時的做法阻礙了選民 全面、積極的參與。在美國總統(tǒng)大選中，投票率徘徊在60%。這個數(shù)字在地方選舉中 會更低。這意味著40%的美國人 沒有參與投票。相當于1億人。

01:50

I believe in something very straightforward: that everyone should have the information that they need to become a voter, that the voting process should be seamless and secure and that every voter should have information they trust to make decisions about the candidates on their ballot. Because when more people vote, together, we make better decisions for our communities.

我相信一些非常直接的東西： 每個人都應(yīng)該獲得作為選民 所需要的信息，投票過程應(yīng)該嚴密、安全，并且每一個投票人應(yīng)該擁有 對選票上的候選人作出決定的 可信信息。因為當更多人投票，一起投票，我們就能為我們的社區(qū) 做更好的決定。

02:13

So I've spent the last eight years on a mission to push our democracy into the 21st century. Now, one of the most common approaches to election modernization is advocating for policy change, and that's an incredibly important piece of the strategy for building a system where millions of more people become voters. But I've taken a different approach. I focused on a critical yet largely untapped resource for election modernization: local election officials. I work with thousands of local election officials across the country to build tools and skills that they can use immediately to transform the way that they're engaging today's voters. Folks like Kat and Marie. Kat and Marie have worked together for years in a windowless office in the basement of the Mercer County Courthouse in West Virginia. Together, they have a tremendous responsibility. They're local election officials serving Mercer County's 40,000 registered voters.

在過去的八年中， 我參與了推動我們的民主社會 進入21世紀這件事上。現(xiàn)在，一個讓選舉現(xiàn)代化的 最常見方式是 呼吁政策改變，這是建立一個讓數(shù)百萬人成為選民 的制度的戰(zhàn)略中非常重要的一部分。但我采取了不同的方式。我專注于一種重要但很大程度上 未開發(fā)的資源 來進行選舉現(xiàn)代化。那就是地方選舉官員。我跟全國各地成千上萬 地方選舉官員合作 來創(chuàng)建他們可以迅速 使用的工具和技能 改變他們吸引今天選民的方式。比如說，凱特和瑪麗。凱特和瑪麗在西弗吉尼亞州 莫瑟縣法院 地下室一間沒有窗戶的辦公室里 共事多年。他們共同肩負著巨大的責任。他們是當?shù)氐倪x舉官員，為默瑟縣 的4萬名注冊選民服務(wù)。

03:15

Local election officials are the public servants that do the day-to-day work that makes our election system function. When you fill out a voter-registration form, they're the folks that process them and add you to the rolls. They're the folks who buy the technology that we use to cast and count ballots. They recruit and train the volunteers at your local polling place. And they're the official nonpartisan source for informing people in their communities about how to vote. And unlike other countries where there's some form of centralized election authority, in the US, there are 7,897 different county and municipal offices, like Kat and Marie's, that each have an independent role in administering elections. Yes, that's nearly 8,000 slightly different ways that you might experience voting based on where you happen to live.

地方選舉官員是國家的公職人員，他們的日常工作 讓選舉制度發(fā)揮作用。當你填寫選民登記表時，他們是處理登記表，把你加入名單的人。他們是購買用來投票和 計票技術(shù)的人。他們在當?shù)氐耐镀闭?招募和培訓志愿者。他們是官方的無黨派消息來源，讓社區(qū)的人們知道如何投票。跟其他擁有 中央選舉機構(gòu)的國家不同的是，在美國，有7897個不同的縣市辦事處，像凱特和瑪麗，她們在選舉方面有獨立的作用。是的，你會體驗到8000種略有差異的 選舉方式，這取決于你剛好生活在哪里。

04:07

When I was talking with Kat and Marie, like so many election officials that I talk with in rural towns and in major cities alike, they were deeply proud of getting to help people in their communities, but they were also worried. All of the new tools that people were using to get information -- the internet, social media -- they were difficult to figure out how to use effectively. And they felt like they weren't fully meeting the needs of Mercer County voters. One thing that they really wished that they had was a website so they could create a hub with information about how to register in upcoming elections, and a place to put election results. See, at the time, when voters had questions, they had to either call or visit their office, which meant that Kat and Marie were inevitably answering the same questions over and over again, which is both a superinefficient use of their time, but also created totally unnecessary barriers for voters when that information could just live online.

當我和凱特和瑪麗交流時，跟我在鄉(xiāng)鎮(zhèn)和主要城市交談過的 很多選舉官員一樣，她們頗為自豪能幫助社區(qū)的人投票，但她們也很擔憂。所有人們用來獲取信息的新工具—— 互聯(lián)網(wǎng)，社交媒體—— 她們難以研究出 有效使用這些工具的方法。她們覺得自己沒有完全滿足 默瑟縣選民的需求。她們很希望擁有的是網(wǎng)站，這樣她們就可以創(chuàng)建一個信息中心 告訴選民如何注冊即將到來的選舉，同時創(chuàng)建一個公布選舉結(jié)果的場所。以前，當選民有疑問時，人們只能打電話，或是前往她們的辦公室，這意味著凱特和瑪麗不可避免地 一遍遍回答同樣的問題，這非常低效地占據(jù)了她們的時間，并且，當信息完全可以被在線瀏覽，這個老系統(tǒng)為投票者 造成了不必要的障礙。

05:06

And Mercer County wasn't alone. At the time, they were one of 966 counties in the US that had no voting information online. I'll let that sink in. They were one of the nearly one-third of counties in the US that had no place online to find official information about how to vote.

莫瑟縣的情況并非個例。它是美國966個無網(wǎng)上投票信息 的縣里面的其中一個。請記住。它們是美國占近1/3的 無在線網(wǎng)站 提供官方投票信息的縣之一。

05:28

To Kat and Marie, not having and election website was unacceptable, but they didn't have very many options. They didn't have the budget to hire a web developer, they didn't have the expertise to build a site themselves, so they went without. And 40,000 voters in Mercer County went without. We're in a moment where we have an unprecedented opportunity to transform civic engagement. Technology is revolutionizing science and industry. It's already transformed how we connect with one another and understand the world around us, but our democratic institutions -- they're being left behind. The US is one of the few major democracies in the world that puts the onus of voter registration on the individual voter, rather than the government. The rules that govern how to vote vary from state to state, and sometimes even county to county. And we have ballots that are pages and pages long. This November, on my ballot, there are literally over 100 different people and referenda for me to make decisions about. We have to be using the best tools we can bring to bear to help voters navigate this complexity, and right now, we're not.

對凱特和瑪麗而言，無選舉網(wǎng)站是不可接受的。但她們沒多余的選擇。她們沒有預(yù)算去雇傭網(wǎng)站開發(fā)者，她們沒有自己創(chuàng)建網(wǎng)站的經(jīng)驗，所以她們只能在 沒有網(wǎng)站的情況下運作。4萬個莫瑟縣的選民在沒有網(wǎng)站的 情況下進行投票。我們正處在一個擁有前所未有的機遇 改變公民參與的時代。技術(shù)正在革新科學和工業(yè)。它已經(jīng)改變了我們彼此連接 和了解周遭世界的方式，但我們的民主機構(gòu)—— 它們卻被拋在后面。美國是全球少數(shù)幾個主要民主國家里 把選民登記的責任推給了個人選民，而非政府的國家之一。管理如何投票的規(guī)則因州而異，有時候甚至縣跟縣都不同。我們的選票長達一頁又一頁。這年11月，我的選票上面，真的有超過100個候選人 需要我作出決定。我們必須使用我們有的 最好工具來幫助選民 克服這種復(fù)雜的情況，而目前為止，我們并沒有。

06:42

One of the most common narratives I hear in my work is that people aren't civically engaged because they're apathetic -- because they don't care. But as my brilliant friends at the Center for Civic Design say, if there is apathy, it comes from the system, not the voter. We can change the system right now by connecting local election officials like Kat and Marie with 21st-century tools and the training that they need to use them to better serve voters. Tools and training to do things like use social media for voter engagement, or use data to staff and equip polling places so that we don't see hours-long lines at the polls, or training on cybersecurity best practices so that we can ensure that our voting systems are secure.

我在工作中聽到的最常見故事之一是 人們不參加到社會工作中來 是因為他們對社會漠不關(guān)心，因為他們不在乎。但就像我在城市設(shè)計中心 的聰明朋友們說的那樣，如果有漠不關(guān)心的情況，那問題源于國家體系，而非選民本身。我們現(xiàn)在就可以改變這個體系，通過給本地選舉官員，像凱特與瑪麗，21世紀的工具 和所需的培訓來 讓他們更好服務(wù)選民。這些工具和培訓包括 使用社交媒體來提高選民參與度，或是通過數(shù)據(jù) 給投票站配備人手，這樣我們就不會看到 長達數(shù)小時的投票排隊，或者培訓符合 網(wǎng)絡(luò)安全的最佳操作，這樣我們就能確保 投票系統(tǒng)的安全。

07:34

When we invest in this approach, we see meaningful, lasting results. Kat and Marie are online now. Inspired by their experience, we built a website template using research-based best practices in civic design, and developed the training so that Kat and Marie are able to maintain their site themselves. In less than a week, they went from having never seen the back end of a website to building a resource for Mercer County voters that they have been independently keeping up to date since 2014. Today, the 40,000 voters in Mercer County and over 100,000 voters in counties across the country have everything that they need to become a voter directly from their local election official, on a mobile-friendly, easy-to-use, accessible website.

當我們以這樣的方式投入時，我們會看到有意義、持續(xù)的結(jié)果。凱特和瑪麗現(xiàn)在上線了。受她們遭遇的啟發(fā)，我們建立了一個網(wǎng)站模板 基于研究，網(wǎng)站的設(shè)計是 最有利于民眾操作的，同時我們還開發(fā)了培訓內(nèi)容，這樣，凱特和瑪麗能夠 維護她們自己的網(wǎng)站。在不到一周的時間內(nèi) 她們從從未見過網(wǎng)站的后端, 到能夠為莫瑟縣的選民提供資源，自2014年以來，她們一直在獨立 保持著網(wǎng)站的更新。今天，4萬位莫瑟縣的選民 和全國超過10萬的選民 可以獲得他們作為選民 需要的所有信息，直接來源于當?shù)氐倪x舉官員，這些信息都在一個擁有移動端、 觸手可及、便于操作的網(wǎng)站。

08:24

And we can even further scale the impact when local election officials are not only reaching out through their own channels, but they're extending their reach by working in partnership with others. Efforts like the Ballot Information Project and the Voting Information Project work with election officials nationwide to create a centralized, standard database of key voting information, like what's on your ballot and where to vote. That information powers tools built by companies like Google and Facebook to get information in the places where people already are, like their newsfeed and search. In 2016, the Ballot Information Project connected the public with information about candidates and referenda over 200 millions times, helping between a third and a half of every single person who cast a ballot. And that model has been replicated for elections around the world.

我們還可以進一步擴大影響，地方選舉官員不僅可以 通過自己的渠道 擴大影響，她們還可以通過與他人合作 來擴大覆蓋范圍。諸如“選票信息計劃”和 “投票信息計劃”，這些項目與 全國范圍內(nèi)的選舉官員合作，來創(chuàng)建一個中心化、標準化的數(shù)據(jù)庫，包含所有關(guān)鍵投票信息，比如你的選票上有什么和 到哪里去投票。這些信息為谷歌和臉書等公司 開發(fā)的工具提供了強大的支持，可以在人們已經(jīng)在的地方獲取信息 如他們信息流和搜索。2016年，“選票信息計劃” 聯(lián)結(jié)公眾與候選人信息和投票信息，超過2億次，幫助了大概1/3到1/2的投票選民。這個模式在世界各地的選舉中 被得以復(fù)制。

09:24

When we look at efforts in other areas of government, we can see the opportunity when we listen to the public's needs and we meet them with modern tools. I think about my friends at mRelief, who have helped 260,000 families unlock 42 million dollars in food benefits by helping government agencies transition away from a 20-page, paper-based application for food stamps to a process that can happen in 10 questions over text message in fewer than three minutes. That kind of transformation is possible in voting. It's happening right now, but there's still so much work to do.

當我們審視政府在 其他方面的作為時，我們可以看到這些機遇： 當我們傾聽公眾的需求，并用現(xiàn)代工具滿足他們的需求 。我想到了我在mRelief的朋友們，他們幫助26萬家庭 獲得了4200萬美元的食物補貼，方法是通過幫助政府機構(gòu) 將20頁紙的紙質(zhì)食品券申請，變成一項在三分鐘內(nèi) 就能通過短信 回答10個問題而做到的事。這種轉(zhuǎn)變在選舉中是可能的?，F(xiàn)在正在發(fā)生，當仍然有很多工作要做。

10:08

Now, if you have any technical bone in your body, I know what you're thinking. This is all solvable. The technology that we need exists. We collectively have the expertise. You might even be thinking about volunteering at your local election office. I love how solutions-oriented you are, but to be clear, the work that is needed to modernize our election system isn't something that's going to happen using 20 percent time, or through a hackathon, or by doing a one-off technology project. What we need is significant, sustained, long-term investment. Investment in technology and investment in the skills of local election officials to run 21st-century elections, because if we don't invest in the long game, we risk finding ourselves perpetually behind.

如果你有對科技技術(shù)有任何了解，我知道你們在想什么。這都是可以解決的。我們需要的技術(shù)是現(xiàn)存的。我們都有專業(yè)知識。你甚至可以考慮在你們 的地方選舉辦公室 做志愿者。我喜歡你們以解決問題為導(dǎo)向的 工作方式，但要明確的是，現(xiàn)代化我們的選舉系統(tǒng) 所需的工作，并不能靠只花20%的時間 就能完成，也不是進行一場編程馬拉松 就能達到的，或是一場一次性的項目 就能搞定的。我們需要的是顯著、持續(xù) 和長期的投入。投資技術(shù)，投資地方選舉官員的技能 來運轉(zhuǎn)21世紀的選舉，因為如果我們不能長期投入，我們可能會發(fā)現(xiàn)自己永遠落后。

11:03

So if you're ready to help millions, if you're ready to close the gap between the system that we have and the system that we deserve, we need you. Organizations that are doing this work year-round need you. Local election offices need you. Come join us.

所以如果你打算幫助成千上萬的人，如果你打算消除我們現(xiàn)有的體系 和我們應(yīng)該擁有的體系之間的差異，我們需要你們。常年從事這項工作的組織需要你。地方選舉辦公室需要你。來加入我們。

11:23

Thank you.

謝謝。

11:25

(Applause)

（鼓掌）