TED 音読練習

アメリカの選挙はなぜ火曜日が投票日？

(日本語字幕を見るには動画の「設定」から選択してください)

I want to tell you all about a piece of American history that is so secret, that nobody has done anything about it for 167 years, until right now.

And the way that we're going to uncover this vestigial organ of America past is by asking this question: Why?

uncover … 明らかにする、暴露する、発見する
vestigial [vèstídʒiəl] … 痕跡の、名残の

As we all know, we are in the middle of another presidential election, hotly contested, as you can see.

hotly … 激しく、熱心に
contest … 争う、闘う

But what you may not know is that American voter turnout ranks near the bottom of all countries in the entire world, 138th of 172 nations.

turnout … 投票率

This is the world's most famous democracy.

So ... Why do we vote on Tuesday?

Does anybody know?

And as a matter of fact, Michigan and Arizona are voting today.

Here's the answer: Absolutely no good reason whatsoever.

whatsoever … まったく

I'm not joking.

You will not find the answer in the Declaration of Independence, nor will you find it in the Constitution.

It is just a stupid law from 1845.

In 1845, Americans traveled by horse and buggy.

buggy … 馬車

As did I, evidently.

evidently … 明らかに、疑いなく、どうやら、見たところでは

It took a day to get to the county seat to vote, a day to get back, and you couldn't travel on the Sabbath, so, Tuesday it was.

county seat … 郡役所所在地
Sabbath … 安息日

I don't often travel by horse and buggy, I would imagine most of you don't either, so when I found out about this, I was fascinated.

I linked up with a group called, what else -- "Why Tuesday?" to go and ask our nation's most prominent elected leaders if they knew the answer to the question, "Why do we vote on Tuesday?"

link up with … ～と連携する
prominent … 著名な、傑出した

Rick Santorum: Anybody knows? OK, I'm going to be stumped on this. Anybody knows why we vote on Tuesdays?

be stumped … 困惑する、途方に暮れる

Jacob Soboroff: Do you happen to know?

Ron Paul: On Tuesdays?

JS: The day after the first Monday in November.

RP: I don't know how that originated.

originate … 由来する、始まる

JS: Do you know why we do vote on Tuesday?

Newt Gingrich: No.

Dick Lugar: No, I don't.

Dianne Feinstein: I don't.

Darrell Issa: No.

John Kerry: In truth, really, I'm not sure why.

JS: OK, thanks very much.

These are people that live for election day, yet they don't know why we vote on that very day.

live for … ～のために生きる

Chris Rock said, "They don't want you to vote. If they did, we wouldn't vote on a Tuesday in November. Have you ever thrown a party on a Tuesday? No, of course not. Nobody would show up."

throw a party … パーティを開く
show up … 現れる、姿を見せる

Here's the cool part.

Because we asked this question, "Why Tuesday?", there is now this bill, the Weekend Voting Act in the Congress of the United States of America.

It would move election day from Tuesday to the weekend, so that -- duh -- more people can vote.

It has only taken 167 years, but finally, we are on the verge of changing American history.

on the verge of … 今にも～しようとして

Thank you very much.