The Natural Law Party should be the ruling party in America.

1) "It does not matter if it's popular vote or electoral vote; unpopular uninspiring candidates don't bring out the 18-25 demographic." Actually to the contrary, it was the severe unpopularity of George Bush that is responsible for increasing the response of the 18-25 demographic. Especially in the 2004 election, young adults were voting against Bush, not for Kerry. It is the apparent disregard the executive branch has had for its citizens that that people are starting to become less apathetic and are demanding change. As evidenced by both the McCain and Obama campaigns, change is what the people are demanding. And you can't say that the system doesn't influence people, because America has never had a direct vote for president. Every single vote is not weighted equally for several reasons. First of all, a vote in a less populated state is worth a greater fraction of an electoral vote than a vote in a more populated state. Secondly, because votes from a states minority party are not counted, those votes are arguably worth less as well. My opponent continues to assert that the people of Wyoming would be a disadvantage, but this is not so. This is because sparsely and densely populated states are much more similar than my opponent cares to admit - both have democrats and republicans. There are rural areas in every state, even the most densely populated state of NJ has farms and farmers; and I'm sure Wyoming has a few cities scattered about too. As I stated in a previous post, there are 4.9 million republicans in California that would better represent the will of people like the people in Wyoming better than they do by themselves (because of their few numbers). 2) "Besides, my opponent ignores the fact that all parties tend to focus campaigning to the undecided portion of the country every election cycle. " This statement is correct, but the conclusions that you have drawn from it are not, so I have conceded nothing to you. The fact that candidates can pander only to swing states is not beneficial because its easier for the candidates, its unfair because they can than ignore states that have clear majorities. "My opponent proves my point when he talks about the cities" No, my point is that candidates would pander only to the cities within the swing states if your argument were correct. "My opponent fails to consider that candidates visit cities in all states just about to campaign there. " Really? In the map on the left - http://en.wikipedia.org... - the states that received a visit from a presidential or vice presidential candidate from either the Obama or McCain campaign is presented. Notice that there are many states that did not receive a single visit, disproving your assertion and confirming that candidates only care about swing states. CA received 2 visits, and NY 1, while FL, OH, and PA (all major swing states) have an uncountable number of visits. I'm not very surprised that the History Channel wouldn't present a seemingly controversial reason for the formation of the electoral college. However, like you say the history is not relevant if it has no modern implications, but I have already shown that voter disenfranchisement still occurs so the history is still quite relevant. 3) "How it would force them to be more honest?" Because its like business - more competition results in a better product - more competition among politicians will result in a better leader being elected. The fringe parties that you speak of know that they have no chance in winning, they exist solely to advertise their message so that maybe it will creep into a mainstream party. If there was a popular vote, 3rd parties might make more serious attempts to compete with the status quo. And as I stated before, the only way that a popular vote would create instability is if there were a 3rd party that gained enough support to destabilize one of the major parties. If that happens, than I say it should have happened a long time ago because that is the will of the people. 4) California does have a clear majority because more than 60% voted for Obama in the last election, which was predicted well before the election and displayed in polling data. 5) It is not unrelated because similar disenfranchisment of slaves was the primary motivation for instating the electoral college. If a popular vote were implemented instead, states would have an incentive to increase their number of active voters. The number of active voters in a state would than become an important factor to the incumbent president when making decisions that may affect said state. 6) I did not concede a point to you, because my point that the presidential election is alone in its use of the electoral college and that therefore the scrutiny should lie on keeping the system, rather than abolishing it, still stands. 7, 8) I think the voters of this debate will disagree, and confirm my resolution that a popular vote would in fact increase voter turnout. The main reason being that there is currently little incentive for supporters of the state's minority party to vote, because they will feel as though their vote is not being counted towards the general election. Furthermore, states do not have an incentive to increase voter turnout with the current system, but would with a popular vote. 9) The fact that California, Texas, and New York were all virtually ignored during the last election (as evidenced by the link previously presented in this post) suggests that state population is not nearly as important as the occurrence of states that have no clear majority. With a popular vote, there would certainly be more attention given to these states, but is it so farfetched that the states with more people receive more attention? It certainly makes more sense than the states with an arbitrary equilibrium receiving all the attention. There has never been a popular vote for president in the U.S., so the only arguments for its existence would have to be theories. 10) I have shown repeatedly how and why the electoral college is at least partly responsible for such problems as low voter turnout and voter disenfranchisement. I have also explained why 3rd parties may be at a disadvantage under the current system, which my opponent has conceded, so I don't understand why my opponent continues to assert that 3rd parties have little popularity. That fact is irrelevant to my argument, and perhaps a testament to the fact that 3rd parties are being held back by the electoral college. 11) This debate is over whether it is better to have a popular vote or an electoral college decide the victor. The fact that the electoral college is the status quo should not count as a reason for its continued existence if it can be shown that a popular vote is better than an electoral college in theory. There are many examples of countries with popular vote elections deciding their president, so there is no shortage of empirical evidence as testimony to the success of popular votes. However, the fact that there is no other country quite like America would prove any direct comparison between ours and another countries system to be arbitrary. Thank you for the debate.