新闻英语词汇: Electoral College, electoral vote, popular vote_北京外宾旅游指南

新闻英语词汇随着人类社会的快节奏发展而发生着日新月异的变化。学习一些常用的新闻英语词汇，有助于阅读和理解海外英语媒体实时报道，了解当前国际政治经济形势。

新闻英语词汇 Journalism Vocabulary

Electoral College 选举人团，或选举团
electoral vote 选举人选票, 选举团投票（最终选出总统）
popular vote 大众直接选票（最终选出选举人）

college 这里是指：an organized group of professional people with particular aims, duties, and privileges.

美国选总统不是美国选民直接投票选举，也不是议会投票选举，而是由选举人团Electoral College 来投票选举。选举人团的代表才是由选民直接投票选出。

每个州的选举团人数等于其在美国众议院的议员人数，再加上其两名美国参议员的人数。

在美国大选中, 决定谁能胜出成为总统, 主要看选举人选票。大众选票实际上是选择选举人。选举时候选人只要超过半数选举人票，达到538张的一半即270张，谁就是美国的下届总统。2016年希拉里的大众选票（popular vote）多于特朗普，但选举人票（ electoral vote ）少于特朗普，竞选总统失败。

美国人不搞全民直选，而是间接民主（即选举人团制度），目的是防止人数多的大州主导选举的形势，确保小州的利益，平衡各州的利益。近几年，也有人提出废除选举人团，改为民众直选。

Citations
Take the case of our blithe acceptance of the electoral college. There is nothing normal or democratic about choosing our president through a system that makes it ever more likely that the candidate who garners fewer votes will nonetheless assume power. For a country that has long claimed to model democracy to the world, this is both wrong and weird.

And there is also nothing neutral or random about how our system works. The electoral college tilts outcomes toward white voters, conservative voters and certain regions of the country. People outside these groups and places are supposed to sit back and accept their relative disenfranchisement. There is no reason they should, and at some point, they won’t. This will lead to a meltdown.

--The Washington Post by E.J. Dionne Jr. August 28, 2019

On Twitter, the Weekly Standard’s Jay Cost responded to Sanders. Over two dozen tweets, he argued against abolishing the electoral college, centering his argument on two points. First, that the country was created in a way that gave states a role in every level of government. Second, that having an electoral college forces candidates to build “geographically broad coalitions.”
--- The Washington Post