听力课堂TED音频栏目主要包括TED演讲的音频MP3及中英双语文稿，供各位英语爱好者学习使用。本文主要内容为演讲MP3+双语文稿:美国的投票选举制该如何优化？，希望你会喜欢！

【演讲者及介绍】Tiana Epps-Johnson

公民参与冠军Tiana Epps-Johnson致力于使美国的选举制度更加现代化、包容和安全。

【演讲主题】将美国的投票制度带入21世纪需要什么？

【中英文字幕】

翻译者psjmz mz 校对者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.

我想让你们每个人花点时间回想 上次发传真或收到传真是什么时候。

00:22

(Laughter)

（笑声）

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，在这个早晨，因为我的工作之一就是 确保美国的每一个人 都有他们需要的信息 来决定他们选票上的候选人。从负责维护这些 的地方政府部门收集这些信息 意味着要发送和接收大量传真。

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 A system where 20th-century technology -- like fax machines -- and outdated practices stand in the way of full, vibrant participation.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.

投票是我们最基本的权利。这是我们每一个人 塑造我们的社区 最切实可行的方式之一。而随着我们进入这第四次工业革命，技术正在改变我们周遭的一切，你可能会想，像投票权 这样重要的事情，应该有最现代，最安全，最包容的系统… 但我们没有。当我们看看类似的民主国家，美国是世界上的投票率 最低的国家之一。即便是最坚持不懈的选民，也会因为系统的各种障碍 而精疲力竭。这个还用20世纪技术的系统—— 如传真机—— 以及其他过时的做法阻碍了选民 全面、积极的参与。在美国总统大选中，投票率徘徊在60%。这个数字在地方选举中 会更低。这意味着40%的美国人 没有参与投票。相当于1亿人。

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东西： 每个人都应该获得作为选民 所需要的信息，投票过程应该严密、安全，并且每一个投票人应该拥有 对选票上的候选人作出决定的 可信信息。因为当更多人投票，一起投票，我们就能为我们的社区 做更好的决定。

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.

在过去的八年中， 我参与了推动我们的民主社会 进入21世纪这件事上。现在，一个让选举现代化的 最常见方式是 呼吁政策改变，这是建立一个让数百万人成为选民 的制度的战略中非常重要的一部分。但我采取了不同的方式。我专注于一种重要但很大程度上 未开发的资源 来进行选举现代化。那就是地方选举官员。我跟全国各地成千上万 地方选举官员合作 来创建他们可以迅速 使用的工具和技能 改变他们吸引今天选民的方式。比如说，凯特和玛丽。凯特和玛丽在西弗吉尼亚州 莫瑟县法院 地下室一间没有窗户的办公室里 共事多年。他们共同肩负着巨大的责任。他们是当地的选举官员，为默瑟县 的4万名注册选民服务。

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.

地方选举官员是国家的公职人员，他们的日常工作 让选举制度发挥作用。当你填写选民登记表时，他们是处理登记表，把你加入名单的人。他们是购买用来投票和 计票技术的人。他们在当地的投票站 招募和培训志愿者。他们是官方的无党派消息来源，让社区的人们知道如何投票。跟其他拥有 中央选举机构的国家不同的是，在美国，有7897个不同的县市办事处，像凯特和玛丽，她们在选举方面有独立的作用。是的，你会体验到8000种略有差异的 选举方式，这取决于你刚好生活在哪里。

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.

当我和凯特和玛丽交流时，跟我在乡镇和主要城市交谈过的 很多选举官员一样，她们颇为自豪能帮助社区的人投票，但她们也很担忧。所有人们用来获取信息的新工具—— 互联网，社交媒体—— 她们难以研究出 有效使用这些工具的方法。她们觉得自己没有完全满足 默瑟县选民的需求。她们很希望拥有的是网站，这样她们就可以创建一个信息中心 告诉选民如何注册即将到来的选举，同时创建一个公布选举结果的场所。以前，当选民有疑问时，人们只能打电话，或是前往她们的办公室，这意味着凯特和玛丽不可避免地 一遍遍回答同样的问题，这非常低效地占据了她们的时间，并且，当信息完全可以被在线浏览，这个老系统为投票者 造成了不必要的障碍。

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.

莫瑟县的情况并非个例。它是美国966个无网上投票信息 的县里面的其中一个。请记住。它们是美国占近1/3的 无在线网站 提供官方投票信息的县之一。

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.

对凯特和玛丽而言，无选举网站是不可接受的。但她们没多余的选择。她们没有预算去雇佣网站开发者，她们没有自己创建网站的经验，所以她们只能在 没有网站的情况下运作。4万个莫瑟县的选民在没有网站的 情况下进行投票。我们正处在一个拥有前所未有的机遇 改变公民参与的时代。技术正在革新科学和工业。它已经改变了我们彼此连接 和了解周遭世界的方式，但我们的民主机构—— 它们却被抛在后面。美国是全球少数几个主要民主国家里 把选民登记的责任推给了个人选民，而非政府的国家之一。管理如何投票的规则因州而异，有时候甚至县跟县都不同。我们的选票长达一页又一页。这年11月，我的选票上面，真的有超过100个候选人 需要我作出决定。我们必须使用我们有的 最好工具来帮助选民 克服这种复杂的情况，而目前为止，我们并没有。

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.

我在工作中听到的最常见故事之一是 人们不参加到社会工作中来 是因为他们对社会漠不关心，因为他们不在乎。但就像我在城市设计中心 的聪明朋友们说的那样，如果有漠不关心的情况，那问题源于国家体系，而非选民本身。我们现在就可以改变这个体系，通过给本地选举官员，像凯特与玛丽，21世纪的工具 和所需的培训来 让他们更好服务选民。这些工具和培训包括 使用社交媒体来提高选民参与度，或是通过数据 给投票站配备人手，这样我们就不会看到 长达数小时的投票排队，或者培训符合 网络安全的最佳操作，这样我们就能确保 投票系统的安全。

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.

当我们以这样的方式投入时，我们会看到有意义、持续的结果。凯特和玛丽现在上线了。受她们遭遇的启发，我们建立了一个网站模板 基于研究，网站的设计是 最有利于民众操作的，同时我们还开发了培训内容，这样，凯特和玛丽能够 维护她们自己的网站。在不到一周的时间内 她们从从未见过网站的后端, 到能够为莫瑟县的选民提供资源，自2014年以来，她们一直在独立 保持着网站的更新。今天，4万位莫瑟县的选民 和全国超过10万的选民 可以获得他们作为选民 需要的所有信息，直接来源于当地的选举官员，这些信息都在一个拥有移动端、 触手可及、便于操作的网站。

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.

我们还可以进一步扩大影响，地方选举官员不仅可以 通过自己的渠道 扩大影响，她们还可以通过与他人合作 来扩大覆盖范围。诸如“选票信息计划”和 “投票信息计划”，这些项目与 全国范围内的选举官员合作，来创建一个中心化、标准化的数据库，包含所有关键投票信息，比如你的选票上有什么和 到哪里去投票。这些信息为谷歌和脸书等公司 开发的工具提供了强大的支持，可以在人们已经在的地方获取信息 如他们信息流和搜索。2016年，“选票信息计划” 联结公众与候选人信息和投票信息，超过2亿次，帮助了大概1/3到1/2的投票选民。这个模式在世界各地的选举中 被得以复制。

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.

当我们审视政府在 其他方面的作为时，我们可以看到这些机遇： 当我们倾听公众的需求，并用现代工具满足他们的需求 。我想到了我在mRelief的朋友们，他们帮助26万家庭 获得了4200万美元的食物补贴，方法是通过帮助政府机构 将20页纸的纸质食品券申请，变成一项在三分钟内 就能通过短信 回答10个问题而做到的事。这种转变在选举中是可能的。现在正在发生，当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.

如果你有对科技技术有任何了解，我知道你们在想什么。这都是可以解决的。我们需要的技术是现存的。我们都有专业知识。你甚至可以考虑在你们 的地方选举办公室 做志愿者。我喜欢你们以解决问题为导向的 工作方式，但要明确的是，现代化我们的选举系统 所需的工作，并不能靠只花20%的时间 就能完成，也不是进行一场编程马拉松 就能达到的，或是一场一次性的项目 就能搞定的。我们需要的是显著、持续 和长期的投入。投资技术，投资地方选举官员的技能 来运转21世纪的选举，因为如果我们不能长期投入，我们可能会发现自己永远落后。

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.

所以如果你打算帮助成千上万的人，如果你打算消除我们现有的体系 和我们应该拥有的体系之间的差异，我们需要你们。常年从事这项工作的组织需要你。地方选举办公室需要你。来加入我们。

11:23

Thank you.

谢谢。

11:25

(Applause)

（鼓掌）