Debaters have to have a US cell phone in order to be able vote.

First, I would like to clarify what is meant by the resolution, since it is poorly worded. I believe it was my opponent's intent to make this a debate about whether or not the current cell phone identity confirmation system is a good thing. Reading through his round 1 arguments makes this pretty clear. I am indeed in favor of the current system. It is one of the best ways to deter people from using multiple accounts for extra votes. It's probably even the best system that would be easily implemented. Also, as a side note, I have not yet gone through the process of confirming my identity, since I don't actually have a cell phone. I will probably borrow my brother's sometime later this week to do it. My opponent made a list of 4 contentions, so I will respond to those now. Contention 1: Ineffective My opponent claims that this system just doesn't do much. People will still make extra accounts, by borrowing cell phones from friends or family. However, it does make the whole process a lot harder. Not only that, but many friends and family would not comply. "You need to borrow my phone? Why? Just use yours! " is something we might hear. Also, it definitely puts a limit on the number of accounts a person can control, since there's only going to be a limited number of people you can borrow cell phones from. In the old system, one could make as many accounts as their heart desired, and if they played their cards right, people wouldn't know. The new system at least limits people's ability to cheat. Contention 2: Discrimination It's not really discrimination, since everyone's expected to do the same thing. It makes all people -- black, white, American, Jamaican -- do the same thing: receive a text message on a US cell phone. More appropriately, we might say it is skewed to favor Americans. But then again, if we look at the people who use Debate. org, that's most of the population of the site. So yes, it might be a bit more trouble for someone like my opponent, who lives in Greece. You are always free to not use the site. Just as I probably wouldn't use a site skewed towards people living in Europe. You can also continue using the site, and just not vote. Or you could put in some work to find someone in the states willing to do you a favor. It may not be fair, but life rarely is. This is the best system we have available. Contention 3: Objections Yes, not all debaters think it is a good solution. For that very reason, I'm likely to lose this match of ours. However, it is true that we do not always know what is best for us. For instance, if given the choice to live in a society where taxes were optional rather than mandatory, many would do so. However, that society just doesn't work very well, and whether they know it or not, most people would prefer life in the mandatory-tax country. People dislike the system because they had to go through some trouble to start voting again. Very few people on the site were very concerned with the problem of multiple accounts, but as an old-timer, I can assure you that mutliple accounts was a problem, especially if that person decided they didn't like you. I've seen people with outstanding win ratios all of a sudden get five votes against them on all their debates. With the new system, things like that will not happen as often. Contention 4: Alternatives My opponent says that better alternatives exist, and that we could think of them fairly quickly. Well forgive me for being an ignoramus, but I cannot think of a better solution to the problem of mulitple accounts. My opponent does give us an example of an alternative system - that our votes be made public, and we be forced to post reasoning behind it. This would be horrible for debate. org, especially with the recent addition of more social networking. Let's say my good old pal Logical-Master has a debate with NoNameDebaterX. Let's say I think Logical-Master got owned. With anonymous voting, I have no qualms with voting truthfully. With public voting, I have to not only show everyone that I voted against Logical-Master, but I have to say why! Many people would prefer not to vote at all than to insult their friends' performance. So then we end up with a system where the more friends you have, the less likely people will be willing to vote against you. That's not good. Not to mention that it would require a huge change in the debate. org database infrastructure, and it would be incompatible with all the debates that already went by. Consider an old debate like this: . http://www.debate.org... With the system my opponent hails as better than the current system, all those votes would now be incompatible. Would we retroactively show who voted for whom in the debate, even though the voters thought they had anonymity when they voted? What would we show for their reason for voting how they did? Not to mention that anonymity while voting is very nice, because like I said, you're more able to vote based on what you actually think rather than on what you want people to see. Also, this system my opponent gives us doesn't even address the problem. Cheaters won't care how you view their dummy accounts. They'll still vote however they want, and simply fill the reason why with generic garbage supporting person X. My opponent closes by saying that there are MANY more solutions that one can think of that would be more efficient than the current system. Well, my esteemed opponent, I'M READY! Bring ALL your numerous solutions, I will show you why each one is worse than the current system. Our current system makes making dummy accounts difficult enough that people won't abuse it as much, with the added bonus of placing a physical limit on the number of accounts a person could potentially have [you can't borrow infinite cell phones from friends]. I'm very excited about the many superior alternatives my opponent is going to tell us about next round.