This house would abolish the Electoral College

Meh. The notion that the argument could be a kritik didn’t occur to me when I argued it, and I don’t see that it is one. Although Pro’s assertion that my argument was a kritik wasn’t supported by Pro within the debate, upon inquiry Pro did say in the comments that “[the argument] is a kritik as it attempts to challenge the assumption of the resolution (i.e. abolishing via constitutional amendment as opposed to NPVIC rather than the ultimate goal which is an abolition of the electoral college.” After reading things like - https://debate.uvm.edu... - and listening to this guy - - I still don’t see that my argument was a kritik. Though, there doesn’t appear to be any definitive test for determining whether or not an argument is a kritik. In any case, perhaps if the argument was framed a bit differently it would be less likely to be viewed as a kritik. So, I will do that now. The resolution is “This house would amend the United States Constitution to abolish the Electoral College.” This is an all-or-nothing resolution; It leaves no room for reasonable alternatives to abolition such as the NPVIC which would address some or all of the concerns of people such as Pro while maintaining the federal nature of the presidential election and without having to go through the burdensome amendment process. This argument was not put forth in opening arguments because Pro desired to use the popular vote, and citing the NPVIC as an alternative would create the appearance of rebuttal. I sought to avoid that because round 2 was for opening arguments only. Whether the argument is framed as “reasonable alternatives” or “Hey, we should do it this way” shouldn’t matter that much; It’s essentially the same argument – Acknowledging that the current state of affairs is somewhat problematic but seeking to avoid the burden of the amendment process while preserving the value of the EC. Pro’s response to the argument is to bring up the issue of the constitutionality of the NPVIC, the issue of trusting the legislatures to honor the NPVIC, and to assert that “the NPVIC would be far more chaotic than an amendment. It seems that an amendment to the constitution would be far more effective and far less disruptive than an interstate compact.” My response to these arguments is this: 1. The constitutionality of legislative acts is not an issue unique to the NPVIC; Bills are always subject to judicial review. The NPVIC may or may not be constitutional, but this issue has not been ruled upon by the courts. There is disagreement among the experts as to whether or not the NPVIC is constitutional - http://www.fairvote.org... - The NPVIC may or may not require congressional consent under the compact clause. However, even if it does, then what’s required is a majority vote in congress. This is still substantially less burdensome than the amendment process, which requires a two thirds majority in congress and ratification in three fourths of the states. As to the issue of violating the electors clause, that argument is weak on its face. The fact that electors being appointed on the basis of votes casts outside a state has never been done before doesn’t matter from a constitutional standpoint. 2. History indicates that trust isn’t a real issue here. Red and blue legislatives have consistently honored the popular vote of their respective states in the past, assigning all of their electoral votes to the winner in their state, even if the winner wasn’t of the same political party as the party in control of the state legislature. 3. Pro’s allegation of the NPVIC being ineffectual and chaotic doesn’t make sense to me. It strikes me as entirely unsupported.