英国经济学人网站于2024年10月31日发表题为《选举之夜及后续发展有何看点？》的文章。以下观点不代表任何译者立场，现将全文翻译如下：
United States | Take this into a count
美国｜重点关注
What to watch for on election night, and beyond
选举之夜及后续发展有何看点？
The first clues on election night that could point to the next president
选举之夜首批线索或预示下任总统
Oct 31st 2024
The result of the 2020 presidential election was the slowest to be called since 2000. Covid-19 restrictions, a mass switch to early voting, high turnout and tight margins in swing states led to four anxious days of vote-counting, nail-biting and Twitter-refreshing before Joe Biden was declared president-elect.
2020年总统大选是自2000年以来最慢确定结果的一次。新冠疫情限制、大规模转向提前投票、高投票率以及摇摆州选情胶着，导致经历了四天令人焦虑的计票、悬念和不断刷新推特后，乔·拜登才被宣布为当选总统。
This year, given heavy early voting, many expect the counting will be slow again. Officials insist that ballot tallying will be faster. And although the contest is close—with six days to go, The Economist’s forecast model had it as a dead heat—there is a good chance of a decisive victory for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, due to a normal polling error. The results could be known just a few hours after polls close—as they were for seven of the past ten elections (see chart).
鉴于今年提前投票人数众多，许多人预计计票速度将再次放缓。但选举官员坚称计票进程会加快。虽然竞争激烈——距投票还有六天时，《经济学人》预测模型显示两党支持率不相上下——但考虑到正常的民调误差，唐纳德·特朗普或卡玛拉·哈里斯都有可能取得决定性胜利。结果可能在投票站关闭后几小时内就会揭晓，就像过去十次选举中的七次一样（见图表）。
The first states to conclude voting will be on the east coast. Six states, including the key battleground of Georgia, will finish voting statewide at 7pm eastern time (midnight in London). By 8pm, 19 more states will have joined them and a flurry of data will be published. Readers should exercise caution: little of substance will be revealed at this stage of the night, unless the election is a landslide.
首批完成投票的州将在东海岸。包括关键战场州乔治亚在内的六个州将于美国东部时间晚上7点（伦敦午夜）结束全州投票。到晚上8点，另外19个州也将完成投票，届时将会发布大量数据。读者需要谨慎看待：除非选举出现压倒性优势，否则在当晚这个阶段很难看出实质性结果。
Exit polls will be published in states that have completed counting. Unlike such polls in many countries, the data will not include estimates of candidates’ share of the vote. Instead, these polls include information on the composition of the electorate, their policy views and top issues—none of which will reveal who has won.
完成计票的州将公布出口民调。与许多国家不同，这些民调数据不会包含候选人的得票份额预估。相反，这些民调包含选民构成、政策立场和关注重点等信息，这些都无法揭示谁是赢家。
In some states, where one candidate is heavily favoured, the election result will be called almost immediately. Unless there is a major upset or a striking trend, these calls may not say much about the election overall. One of the first states to be called in 2020 was Vermont, which Ms Harris is overwhelmingly likely to win. The absence of a call may be more informative: if Virginia is not called soon after polls close, it may indicate that Mr Trump is having a good night. The reverse is true for Ohio.
在某些一位候选人占据绝对优势的州，选举结果将几乎立即公布。除非出现重大意外或明显趋势，这些结果可能无法反映整体选情。2020年最早确定结果的州之一是佛蒙特，哈里斯在那里极有可能获胜。反而是未能及时确定结果的情况可能更具参考价值：如果弗吉尼亚州在投票结束后未能很快宣布结果，这可能表明特朗普表现不错。俄亥俄州则恰恰相反。
The first sets of counted votes are unlikely to reveal much, either. In many states, where large urban counties that lean Democratic are slow to count, the vote will appear more Republican than the final tally. In 2020 this effect was compounded in some states by mail-in ballots (which skewed Democratic) being slowest to count. Hence the “blue shift” phenomenon: Republican vote leads wiped out by late-counted Democratic ballots, fuelling false claims of electoral fraud.
首批计票结果也不太可能透露太多信息。在许多州，由于倾向民主党的大型城市县计票速度较慢，初期结果会显得比最终统计更偏向共和党。2020年，在一些州这种现象因邮寄选票（倾向民主党）计票最慢而加剧。因此出现了“蓝色转移”现象：共和党的领先优势被后期计入的民主党选票抹平，这引发了选举舞弊的不实指控。
So what will be the first solid pointers on election night? One metric to watch is the change between county-level results in 2020 and 2024 (this will appear on each state’s results page on economist.com). By comparing counties which have completed their tallies, we can measure the change in support for each party’s candidate.
那么选举之夜最早的可靠指标是什么？一个值得关注的指标是2020年和2024年各县级结果的变化（这将显示在economist.com的各州结果页面上）。通过比较已完成计票的县，我们可以衡量各党派候选人支持率的变化。
For example, in a key state such as Pennsylvania—with 67 counties—the early results might come from a selection of counties that Mr Biden won by ten percentage points in 2020. Suppose those counties show Ms Harris winning by five points. If that shift were replicated across the state, Mr Trump would be on track to win Pennsylvania as a whole by four points (Mr Biden won it by one point in 2020).
例如，在宾夕法尼亚这样的关键州（共有67个县），早期结果可能来自2020年拜登以十个百分点优势获胜的部分县。假设这些县显示哈里斯领先五个百分点。如果这种变化在全州范围内重现，特朗普将有望以四个百分点的优势赢得宾夕法尼亚州（2020年拜登在该州以一个百分点获胜）。
When the first states conclude counting, we will get more clues as to how the election has panned out. Florida finished counting before midnight eastern time in 2020. Although the state is not likely to be competitive (our forecast gives Ms Harris a five-in-100 chance of an upset), it could still indicate who has the upper hand. Using simulations from our forecast, we can see how the result in Florida relates to Ms Harris’s chances of winning overall. If she loses Florida by seven percentage points, she has a one-in-two chance of winning the presidency. If she loses the state by more than 11 points, her chances of winning the election sink below one in five.
当首批州完成计票时，我们将获得更多关于选举走势的线索。2020年，佛罗里达州在东部时间午夜前完成了计票。尽管该州可能不会有太大悬念（根据我们的预测，哈里斯在该州获胜的概率仅为百分之五），但其结果仍可能预示谁占据上风。通过我们的预测模型模拟，我们可以看出佛罗里达州的结果与哈里斯赢得大选的机会之间的关系。如果她在该州落后七个百分点，赢得总统职位的机会为二分之一。如果落后超过11个百分点，胜选机会将降至五分之一以下。
Both of these measures are imperfect. The first counties and states to tally their votes may be unrepresentative. In 2020 Florida moved two points towards Mr Trump whereas the country as a whole moved two points towards Mr Biden.
这两种衡量方式都不完美。最早完成计票的县和州可能缺乏代表性。2020年，佛罗里达州向特朗普倾斜了两个百分点，而全国整体则向拜登倾斜了两个百分点。
The final result will probably come down to seven key states. In our forecast, Ms Harris has a 93% chance of becoming president if she wins Pennsylvania, for example, and Mr Trump has a 95% chance if he wins Michigan. Of the seven states, Georgia and Michigan may be the fastest to count. Georgia has mandated that results from early voting (around 70% of Georgia’s total vote) must be announced by 8pm eastern time. Michigan has changed the law to allow the processing of early votes before election day, speeding up the tally compared with 2020. North Carolina is also traditionally quick to count but may experience disruption due to Hurricane Helene.
最终结果可能取决于七个关键州。根据我们的预测，如果哈里斯赢得宾夕法尼亚州，她有93%的几率当选总统；如果特朗普赢得密歇根州，他有95%的几率获胜。在这七个州中，乔治亚州和密歇根州的计票速度可能最快。乔治亚州规定必须在东部时间晚上8点前公布提前投票结果（约占该州总票数的70%）。密歇根州修改了法律，允许在选举日之前处理提前投票，这比2020年加快了计票速度。北卡罗来纳州传统上计票也很快，但可能因海伦飓风而受到影响。
Others could well be slower. Pennsylvania, the most likely pivotal state according to our forecast, will not start processing millions of postal ballots until the morning of election day. Arizona and Nevada, in the west, finish voting later that day and take longer to count their mail-in ballots, which are popular in both states. Nevada accepts and counts ballots which arrive after election day, too (although these are unlikely to flip the state).
其他州可能会更慢。根据我们的预测最有可能成为关键州的宾夕法尼亚州，要到选举日当天早晨才开始处理数百万张邮寄选票。位于西部的亚利桑那州和内华达州当天较晚结束投票，且需要更长时间计算在两州都很普遍的邮寄选票。内华达州甚至接受并计算选举日之后到达的选票（尽管这些选票不太可能改变该州结果）。
The timing of the final call will depend on how close the election is. In 2000, when the presidency was decided by just over 500 votes in Florida, it took weeks to determine the result. In 1984, when Ronald Reagan won by a landslide, the result was called at 8pm eastern time, while voters on the west coast were still casting ballots. A decisive victory for either candidate would reduce the opportunities for spurious litigation and election denialism—a pastime of Mr Trump’s which may slow the announcement of the final result.
最终结果公布的时间将取决于选情的胶着程度。2000年，当总统选举仅以500多票之差在佛罗里达州决出胜负时，用了数周才确定结果。1984年，罗纳德·里根以压倒性优势获胜，结果在东部时间晚上8点就已宣布，当时西海岸选民还在投票。任何一位候选人获得决定性胜利都将减少虚假诉讼和选举否认主义的机会——后者是特朗普的一贯做法，可能会延缓最终结果的宣布。
Eyes on the prize
瞩目焦点
The median scenario from our forecast has Ms Harris winning her pivotal 270th electoral-college vote by less than half a percentage point. But there is also a substantial chance of a polling miss of a scale that would give one or other of the candidates a comfortable win. In one in six scenarios from our forecast, the winning margin in the pivotal state is greater than five points—matching Barack Obama’s re-election in 2012. If that were to happen, we would probably have a clear indication early in the night (the 2012 election was called before midnight eastern time). In three out of four forecast scenarios, the margin of victory in the pivotal state is larger than Mr Biden’s in 2020.
我们的预测中位数场景显示，哈里斯将以不到半个百分点的优势赢得关键的第270张选举人票。但也有相当大的可能出现足以让某一候选人轻松获胜的民调误差。在我们预测的六分之一场景中，关键州的获胜幅度超过五个百分点——与巴拉克·奥巴马2012年连任时相当。如果出现这种情况，我们可能在当晚早些时候就能看到明确迹象（2012年大选在东部时间午夜前就已宣布结果）。在四分之三的预测场景中，关键州的胜利幅度都大于2020年拜登的优势。
The tail risk of election-night becoming election-week or election-month is still significant. If the presidency comes down to a few thousand votes in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania—the central estimate of our forecast—it could take weeks to resolve. Election interference could extend the wait even further. But there is also a fair chance that the result is known sooner than many expect. Election-watchers, adjust your sleep schedule accordingly.
选举之夜演变成选举周或选举月的尾部风险仍然显著。如果总统选举的胜负取决于威斯康星州或宾夕法尼亚州几千票的差距——这是我们预测的中心估计——可能需要数周才能有结果。选举干扰可能进一步延长等待时间。但结果比许多人预期更早揭晓的可能性也相当大。选举关注的各位，请相应调整你们的作息时间。■
