Resolved: Direct popular vote should replace electoral vote in presidential elections.

I'll be at a tournament on friday and saturday, so I will unfortunately almost certainly forfiet round three due to the 24 hour period for making arguments. If my opponent could wait as long as possible to post her round three, I would appreciate that very much. I'll now attack my opponents case. In her framework, my opponent claims that the word should implys that something needs to be morally better. Ok, the problem is that this is not a debate based off of morality, but rather logic. Besides, accepting this framework leads one to a Con ballot, because you can see in my case that we're respecting states rights and minority interests along with keeping a moderate government. Winner takes all A. Votes are ignored First of all, turn the Pekec evidence. Imagine having to recount of such a small margin in a nation-wide election. Where would we even begin? Further, my opponent claims that whoever voted for the losing candidate has had their vote "wasted". Umm not exactly. The Heritage foundation pre-empts this argument in the article I've already linked: “Such arguments, however, are a bit disingenuous. These votes were not wasted. They were simply cast on the losing side of a popular vote within the state. If the 2000 election had been conducted based on nationwide popular vote totals only, would people claim that any vote for George W. Bush was "wasted" because Al Gore won the popular vote? Of course not. The votes for Bush were cast in an effort to win. In the event of a loss, they would simply have been votes for the losing candidate -- just as in any other election (such as an election for Governor or Senator).” The system is a winner takes all system because that's how politics works! Unless my opponent is going to argue something ludicrous like giving Al Gore 2 years in office and George Bush 2 years, a winner takes all system is how our government is. Also, no negative impact argued. Sure, Al Gore supporters won't like that GWB won, but so what? B. Close elections more likely under EC. Turn: Let's look at the closest thing the U.S. has ever had to an election by direct popular vote, that of 1824. In the end, the president who won has merely 31% of the vote! The candidiate with the most popular votes had only 41%, still WELL under a majority. So when my opponent argues that we need to abolish the EC because a few times in history a minority president has been elected, we need to consider the implications of DPV. Such a thing is more likely to happen under DPV. Turn: Tilden only had a "majority" of popular votes because the democrats in the South were suppressing the black vote[1]. " Democrats used violence and intimidation to keep blacks from the polls, while Democrats claimed that Republicans weren't simply disallowing votes tainted by violence but also legitimate returns that favored the Democratic party." Turn: Hayes was a good president. Hayes eneded reconstruction, ended the spoils system, dealt with corruption in the postal service, and enforced the monroe doctrine, among other things. 2. DPV ensures vote equality A. Close elections make some votes more valuable Kay, just like a vote in the 1984 election was less valuable than one in the 2000 election. Again my opponent criticizes the "winner takes all" aspect. Let me make a satirical response: Kerry got 48.3% of the vote in 2004! Its immoral that he doesn't get to be president for 48.3% of the time! Bush got to be president for 4 years, and Kerry didn;t get to be president at all! That made a vote for Bush infinitely more valuable than a Kerry vote, which is immoral. (also, in response to close elections being immoral we need to ask why. My Opponent hasn't even tried to explain this---she's merely asserted.) Does the above argument seem logical? Of course not. Again, the reason that winners take all is because that is how politics works. B. Small states are over-represented. When considering this argument, we need to ask ourselves what kind of impact this has, and what kind of implications acting on this would carry. Surely small states are "over represented" in the Senate, right? Should we abolish the senate and make everything based on population? Also turn: My Opponent argues that candidates need to campaign in all parts to morally represent the people. Unfortunately for her, this supports my side. Recall what I've stated earlier, that when candidates campaign in battleground states they are creating a platform to represent all Americans, not just the Americans living in their areas of the country. I see no ballot other than Con for this debate because my opponents arguments are not only refuted, but down-right impactless. Frmwrk: My opponent tries to weigh the framework by essentially saying that we need to consider morality above practicality. Before we can even consider this, let's look to the fact that NOWHERE has my opponent even attempted to argue what is/isnt moral! If we want to go with her framework, she must define, prove and defend a system of objective morality or else we cannot conclude the EC to be immoral. In response to my framework, she as argued "As long as the state winner-take-all policy still exists, it is inevitable that a large portion of the voters in each state will be ignored, and this number is compounded 51 times, as previously mentioned" That's a huge burden for my oppontnet to prove. The winner takes all system would still apply under DPV, that was the purpose of my point C, which she never responded to with anything other than "morality". In response to my 2nd observation she states: "the direct popular vote system would use a single, national vote tally to determine the presidency." This turns her implied recount argument, such things would be much more likely to happen under a nation-wide scale. She's also stated that if a candidate gets >50% the house will vote. The house is almost ALWAYS dominated by one party, which would keep the voices of people from the other party unheard.1. http://tinyurl.com...