（写在前面：美国的政治制度本身就是反民主的。）
AS SOON as it became clear that Donald Trump lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes in the 2016 election, he started looking for a pretext to explain his failure to pass the most basic test of democratic legitimacy.
由于很明显唐纳德特朗普在2016年大选中失去了近300万票的大众选票，他开始寻找借口来解释为什么他未能通过对民主合法性的最基本考验。
Trump conjured up the most outrageous and transparent lies to explain his loss, grumbling about widespread voter fraud and blaming “the millions of people who voted illegally” for depriving him of a popular vote victory.
特朗普想出了最令人愤怒和透明的谎言以解释他的损失，他抱怨广泛的选民欺诈行为，并指责“数百万非法投票的人”剥夺了他的大众投票胜利。
But these lies were more than an incurable megalomaniac trying to save face in front of a skeptical world. Soon after his inauguration, Trump moved to act on his lies, creating a commission to “investigate” the nearly non-existent phenomenon of voter fraud.
但这些谎言不仅仅只是一个无法治愈的自大狂试图在怀疑的世界面前挽回面子。 就职典礼后不久，特朗普开始将他的谎言诉诸行动，设立一个委员会以“调查”几乎不存在的选民欺诈现象。
He recruited Kansas Secretary of State and current gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach — a frequent Breitbart contributor with white supremacist ties who also happens to be the Grand Wizard of Republican voter suppression efforts — to lead it.
他招募了堪萨斯州州务卿和现任州长候选人Kris Kobach —一位与白人至上主义发生关系的经常性的Breitbart供稿者，他也恰好是共和党选民压制工作的大巫师—领导者。
The commission was drowned in lawsuits and forced to disband before it could achieve anything concrete. But it was emblematic of the way in which Trumpian bravado — which on its face can appear to be a stark departure from the more sedate form of traditional Republican statesmanship — corresponds comfortably in practice with well-established conservative policies.
该委员会在诉讼中被淹死，并被迫解散，在其实现具体的任务之前。 但它象征着特朗比的虚张声势—其表面看起来似乎与传统的更为稳重的共和党政治家风格形式相距很远—但在实践中与完善的保守政策相吻合。
The results of the 2016 election were deeply marred by Republican-led voter suppression efforts, and the upcoming 2018 midterms stand to follow much the same pattern.
共和党领导的选民压制努力严重损坏了2016年大选的结果，而即将到来的2018年中期也将遵循相同的模式。
That’s because despite all the advances in voting rights that have been made since the days when only educated, property-owning European males could legally participate in the U.S. political system, the manipulation of laws by the ruling parties to prevent people from participating in the political process remains common today.
这是因为尽管自从只有受过教育的，拥有财产的欧洲男性可以合法参与美国政治系统的日子之后投票权的进步很大，执政党操纵法律以阻止人们参与政治过程在今天仍然很普遍。
Voter suppression is an openly racist and elitist affront to the basic principles of democracy, but though most of today’s overt voter-suppression efforts are the work of Republicans, aimed at depressing turnout by constituencies who traditionally vote Democratic, it’s a mistake to limit the discussion of voter suppression solely to the racist New Jim Crow tactics of the right wing.
选民压制是对基本民主原则的公开的种族主义和精英主义的侮辱，但尽管今天大多数公开的选民压制努力都是共和党人的工作，旨在压制传统上投票给民主党的选民的投票率，但将讨论限制在认为是选民压制仅限于右翼的种族主义的新吉姆·克劳战术是错误的。
Increasing the ability of the public to participate in the democratic process through the ballot box is the goal of all those who wish to fight voter suppression efforts. But this inevitably leads to a whole raft of questions about whether the current system is democratic to begin with.
通过投票箱提高公众参与民主进程的能力是所有希望打击选民压制努力的人的目标。 但这不可避免地导向了一系列关于现行制度是否民主的问题。
TODAY IN Georgia, the Republican-controlled state government has suspended 53,000 pending voter registration applications on the eve of the midterm elections, 70 percent of which belong to African Americans.
今天在佐治亚，共和党控制的州政府在中期选举前夕暂停了53,000份未决的选民登记申请，其中70％属于非洲裔美国人。
This comes on top of a purge, led by current Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp, that had nullified the registration of over 1.4 million voters in the state since 2012.
这是由现任共和党州长候选人Brian Kemp领导的一次清洗，导致自2012年以来该州的140多万选民登记无效。
Such voter purges have been common in Republican states for years, facilitated by programs such as Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck, a wildly inaccurate voter-purging system created in Kansas in 2005 by none other than Kobach. Crosscheck is responsible for millions of purged voters to date, and was probably more of a deciding factor in Trump’s 2016 election victory than fake news, Russian hacking and “double voters” combined.
这种选民清洗在共和党各州多年来一直很常见，这得益于Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck等项目，这是2005年堪萨斯州的Kobach创建的一个非常不准确的选民清洗系统。 到目前为止，Crosscheck要对数百万被清除的选民负责，并且可能更像是特朗普2016年大选胜利的决定因素，而不是假新闻，俄罗斯黑客和“双重选民”的总和。
In North Dakota today, a discriminatory voter-ID law threatens to disenfranchise thousands of Native Americans and could determine whether Republicans retain control of the Senate in November.
今天在北达科他州，歧视性的选民身份法可能会剥夺成千上万美国原住民的人权，并可能决定共和党人是否在11月保留对参议院的控制权。
In other states, Republican officials are using similar tactics to target ethnic minorities and the poor in order to ensure that the preferred candidates of the party’s xenophobic, nationalist base are elected to office.
在其他州，共和党官员正在使用类似的策略来针对少数族群和穷人，以确保党内仇外的民族主义基地的首选候选人当选。
There are so many voter suppression tactics in use today that you need an encyclopedia to keep track of them all.
今天有很多选民压制策略在使用，以至于你需要一本百科全书来跟踪它们。
In addition to Crosscheck-style mass purges, there is voter caging, another form of purging whereby partisan operatives create lists of selected groups of voters in order to legally challenge their registration and disqualify them from voting.
除了Crosscheck式的大规模清洗之外，还有选民囚禁，这是另一种形式的清洗，其中党派工作人员创建选定的选民群体名单，以便合法地挑战他们的注册并取消他们的投票资格。
The tactic is a favorite of Republicans going back to at least the 1980s, and is usually done by sending out bulk mailings to left-leaning minority voters. If the mailings are returned as undeliverable, this then serves as evidence that can be used to legally challenge the voter’s registration and purge it.
这种策略是共和党人至少在1980s时就有的最爱，通常是通过向左倾的少数群体选民发送大量邮件来完成的。如果邮件无法送达，则可以作为证据用于合法挑战选民的注册并清除它。
In 2004, Republican operatives in Florida were caught red-handed when an e-mail between officials of the George W. Bush campaign leaked, containing a “caging list” with 1,886 voters on it.
2004年，当乔治·W·布什的竞选官员之间的电子邮件泄露时，佛罗里达州的共和党人员被逮捕，其中包含一份“囚禁名单”，其上有1,886名选民。
IN ADDITION to caging and other overt purging efforts, partisan state governments have been increasingly passing strict voter-ID laws like the one in North Dakota, especially since 2013, when the Supreme Court decision Shelby County v. Holder struck down section 4(b) of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which protected the rights of voters in states of the former Confederacy by requiring a federal review of changes to election law in those states.
除了囚禁和其他公开清洗工作外，党派州政府越来越多地通过严格的选民身份法，例如北达科他州的法律，特别是自2013年以来，最高法院判决谢尔比县诉霍尔德案，推翻了第4（b）条 1965年选举权法案，这条法案要求联邦审查这些州选举法的变化来保护前南部各州选民的权利。
Banning people with criminal records from voting, even after they’ve served their sentences, is another tried-and-true voter suppression tactic, operating hand-in-glove with policies designed to criminalize African Americans and other groups — a combination pioneered in the post-Civil War South.
禁止有犯罪记录的人投票，即使他们已经服过刑，也是另一种经过验证的选民压制策略，与旨在将非洲裔美国人和其他群体罪犯化的政策密切配合 —在内战后的南方被率先组合。（罪犯一样有基本人权，包括投票权，而且很多被扔进监狱的根本不是罪犯，而是被Jim Crow残害的受害者。）
This suppression tactic was used to great effect in Florida during the 2000 election, when 58,000 alleged felons had their voter registration purged by Florida’s Republican government, led by then-Gov. Jeb Bush — whose brother George became president thanks to his questionable victory in the state.
在2000年大选期间，这种压制策略在佛罗里达州实现了重大影响，当时58,000名被指控的罪犯被佛罗里达州共和党政府清除，由当时的州长Jeb Bush主导—由于他在州内的可疑胜利，其兄弟乔治成为总统。
As Ari Berman noted in the Nation, a lawsuit filed by the NAACP against the Florida government at that time eventually “turned up 12,000 voters who shouldn’t have been labeled felons. That was 22 times Bush’s 537-vote margin of victory.”
正如Ari Berman在Nation指出的那样，当时NAACP对佛罗里达州政府提起的诉讼最终“找到了12,000名不应该被标记为罪犯的选民。这是布什的537票的胜利数的22倍。“
Closing all but one of the polling stations in a minority area is also a tactic that is commonly used by Republicans. In Dodge City, Kansas, Republican state officials recently moved the city’s only polling station outside of the city limits, miles away from the city center, to a place that’s inaccessible by public transportation.
关闭少数人群地区的除一个投票站外的所有投票站也是共和党人常用的策略。在堪萨斯州的道奇城，共和党官员最近将这座城市唯一的投票站搬到了距离市中心数英里的城市范围之外的一个公共交通无法到达的地方。(恶意增加投票成本，真是卑鄙。)
The population of Dodge City is 60 percent Latino, and, as the Kansas ACLU pointed out, the “polling site serves 13,136 voters, making it one of the most burdened polling places in the state of Kansas.”
道奇城的人口的60％是拉美裔，正如堪萨斯州的ACLU指出的那样，“投票站为13,136名选民提供服务，使其成为堪萨斯州负担最重的投票站之一。”
THE RESTRICTION of the right to vote has been an important feature of American elections since the country was founded over 200 years ago.
自这个国家建立后的200多年以来，对投票权的限制一直是美国大选的一个重要特征。
But direct voter suppression is merely one way that the ruling parties limit and control the political process for their own benefit. If our goal is to expand democracy, then we must also examine the other sides of the problem.
但直接的选民压制只是执政党为了自身利益而限制和控制政治进程的一种方式。如果我们的目标是扩大民主，那么我们也必须检查问题的其他方面。
Unjust ballot access laws, supported by both Democrats and Republicans, preserve a repressive two-party system, despite popular support for a viable third party, by unduly restricting who can appear on the ballot.
民主党和共和党都支持的不公正的选票准入法保留了一种压制性的两党制，尽管可见的第三党受到大众支持，谁可以出现在选票上是被过度限制的。
In most states, prospective third parties must expend significant campaign resources to gather large numbers of signatures in order to even have a place on the ballot. In order to maintain their legal status as a party, their candidates must often secure large vote percentages in each election.
在大多数州，有希望的第三党必须花费大量的竞选资源来收集大量签名，以便在选票上占有一席之地。 为了保持其作为政党的法律地位，他们的候选人通常必须在每次选举中获得大的投票比例。
Constitutional structures such as the Electoral College, which was designed to protect the Southern slave aristocracy, intentionally and unfairly skew the balance of electoral power in favor of white, rural Republican voters.
旨在保护南方奴隶主贵族的选举人团等宪法结构有意的和不公平地扭曲了选举权力的平衡，将权力扭向白人和农村的共和党选民。
And then there are the systems of federal congressional representation themselves, which were crafted by and for a wealthy colonial elite under radically different social conditions than those existing today.
此外，还有联邦国会代表制度本身，这些制度是由一个富裕的殖民精英为自己制作的，这些精英生活在与现在完全不同的社会条件下。
In the Senate, because each state, no matter how small, gets two senators, it’s possible for just 17 percent of the U.S. population to elect a Senate majority.
在参议院，由于每个州，无论多么小，都有两位参议员，结果就是17％的美国人口就可以选出参议院多数席位。（这完全就是反民主的！）
And Article V of the Constitution, which governs the amendment process, states that “no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate,” meaning that the Senate literally cannot be reformed under the current Constitution.
宪法第五条规定了修正程序，该条规定“任何州，未经其同意，都不得在参议院中被剥夺其平等的选举权”，这意味着根据现行宪法，参议院实际上不能被改革。
To describe such a legislature as a “democratic institution” is to achieve a Trumpian magnitude of dishonesty.
将这样的立法机构描述为“民主机构”展现出了特朗比的不诚实程度。
But it’s not only the Senate. The geographical distribution of the population, combined with the Congressional district system, means that the House, too, gives outsized power to rural voters. And because representation in the House and in state legislatures is apportioned through electoral districts drawn by those in power, partisan gerrymandering has been a perpetual tactic used to skew the democratic process.
但不仅仅只有参议院是如此。人口的地理分布与国会地区系统相结合，意味着众议院也为农村选民提供了过大的权力。而且由于众议院和州立法机构的代表权是通过当权者所选择的选区划分的，基于党派利益的扭曲选区是一种用来扭曲民主进程的永久战术。
Just 9 percent of the population selected Trump and Hillary Clinton as the presidential candidates in party primaries in 2016, and Trump won the election with the votes of just 27 percent of eligible voters.
仅有9％的人口选择特朗普和希拉里克林顿作为2016年党内初选的总统候选人，特朗普只获得了27％的合格选民的票数就赢得了大选。
The truth is that majority rule has never existed in the United States, because it is barely even possible under the current system.
事实是多数统治在美国从未存在过，因为在现行制度下几乎不可能实现。
Fixing the American political system and ending the suppression of democracy in all its forms will require nothing less than a revolutionary overhaul that scraps the current Constitution and creates entirely new political structures that are truly democratic.
修复美国的政治制度，结束各种形式的对民主的压制，只需要进行革命性的改变，废除现行宪法，创造真正民主的全新的政治结构。