In the United States, the Electoral College should be abolished.

- Introduction I am going to once more tear down my opponent's arguments and rebuttals and show why my case remains firmly unscathed. - Regarding My Opponent's Initial Arguments 1. A coin analogy wont work as it does not embody Pro's original sentiments about how once a 50% threshold of votes is reached the others do not "matter". The fact remains that more people that vote for a specific candidate, the higher the chances of that candidate winning. Regardless of whether or not every vote is directly responsible for a win, every vote still counts from a probabilistic standpoint. Ergo, Pro's arguments here still fail. 2. I never once stated that giving more power to smaller states makes it more democratic, just that it makes it more fair from a holistic standpoint. Also, my opponent cited no sources or reasoning for his 19.4% calculation so it can be disregarded. I provided sources for my claim that half of the country populated only 146 out of the 3000 counties in the country in my first round. If half the population resides in only 4.86 % of the the counties, then if the winner was decided by popular vote, and everyone from those 146 counties voted one way hypothetically, a candidate could get half the votes just from just 4.86% of the counties that exist in the whole country. Since deciding the winner by popular vote isn't fair to the vast majorities of counties in the US, it should not be implemented as a replacement to the Electoral College which works so well. 3. An objective court could prosecute electors for biased voting if there was proof of such conduct. However, it is next to impossible to prove as biased electors could conjure up multiple reasons for the bad vote. Also, there is no reason to think the non-practice regarding my opponent's issue will not continue in the future so his concerns are unfounded. Pro still hasn't shown why a pure democracy is better than the Electoral College, just stating "Democracy is the best system" doesn't cut it. 4. Most of the time simplicity is a form of efficiency, especially considering how long it would take to calculate votes if the FPTP was abolished. Pro has not proven that his reasons against the FPTP system outweigh the efficiency of easily calculated votes. His argument still fails. 5. Pro argues against my teleportation example because the universal laws would have to be re-written to make it possible. This is false, teleportation is possible in this universe via quantum entanglement. Either way, third-party candidates have an little chance of winning presidential elections anyway, so if the Electoral College makes it even harder for that to occur there is no practical difference as the outcome would most likely be the same regardless. 6. My opponent's calculation involving population distribution this round wasn't backed up by anything; mine was. Pro implies that the democratic aspects the Electoral College embodies are exactly what it hurts but offered no argument for this. My opponent's baseless assertions can be graciously ignored. 7. I never implied that some people are more important than others, just that some voters have more motivation to make an educated vote than others. Since my opponent straw-manned my position he fails to establish any relevant point. 8. One of the main reasons those 43% of households don't pay federal income tax is because they didn't make enough income to qualify. This isn't the same as being exempt from income tax because they live in a territory; my opponent is drawing a false equivalence. So, Pro's objections miss the mark once again. - Regarding My Initial Arguments 1. This objection has been addressed in this round already. 2. Pro claims the STV is still a simple system but it is not; all one needs to do is look at what happened in New Zealand in 2004. It took over a month to calculate the votes because of the complexity involved in vote calculations. As New Zealand party MP Nick Smith writes: "STV is a system designed for political scientists and mathematicians not voters. .. The local government elections were a disaster and an international embarrassment. " The STV is not practical in any sense. 3. A rebuttal is a form of arguing so one cannot rebuttal without making a "new argument". Either way the no new argument rule only applies to this round according to the rules outlined. My opponent also once again states that if the Electoral College doesn't match with the popular vote that it is not "correct", in order to argue for deciding the winner by popular vote. However, this assumes already that deciding the victor by popular vote is correct. Since Pro assumes his conclusion to argue for it, this amounts to nothing more than begging the question and circular reasoning. 4. The Electoral College is not anti-democratic, it is just less democratic than other potential election methods. This is not necessarily a bad thing though, because a pure democracy would force us to deem a handful of counties and states as more important than most of the country. That is unacceptable, because issues like the water crisis in Flint, Michigan would go largely ignored. 5. My opponent says that the efficiency comes at the price of more democracy. However, a pure democracy isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread like my opponent implies, as majority of the country is vastly uneducated on political issues. So, leaving important choices like who becomes the president to the majority of Americans is more scary than anything. Therefore, just because an election done via the Electoral College doesn't match with the popular vote doesn't mean it wasn't successful. If anything, in many cases, it could be considered a good thing. 6. What my opponent fails to realize is that the idea of the Electoral College is inherent to American Federalism, so his reasons for wanting to abolish the Electoral College are irrelevant to my point here. It still stands that we might as well get rid of Federalism and states in general if we get rid of the Electoral College, because the Electoral College is the only system which can embody those principles accurately. 7. My opponent argues that the Electoral College has caused more bad presidents to win the election than good. Thus, in his mind, this point alone shows why the resolution has been proven. This fails for two reasons: (i) It is debatable whether or not the presidents he mentioned were actually bad presidents (ii) It invokes a quantity over quality logic which is flawed With regards to (i), Benjamin Harrison for example did much good, like forcing Chile into paying reparations to Americans. The War on Terror stopped many terrorist cells from causing harm to American cities. Also, what Trump said before he got elected does not dictate what he will actually do once president. With regards to (ii), it could be argued that abolishing slavery trumps whatever bad a handful of presidents might have done. Therefore, based on (i) and (ii), Pro's logic falls flat. 8. Again, just because X is not as democratic as Y, that doesn't mean X is less desirable by default. This is a false axiom Pro uses in many of his arguments that simply hasn't been shown to be true. - Conclusion "Equal voting rights" would mean a handful of counties and states would have half of the voting power, and it would be a crime to ignore the needs of the majority of states because they have less people; this would be catastrophic. My opponent simply doesn't realize that the US was never meant to be a pure democracy, and there is no reason to assume a pure democracy is to be desired.