Question: Do electronic voting machines improve the voting process?

Title: Efficiency Content: Voting machines are far from reliable in this instance. Experts have expressed concern that ‘hackers, software bugs . . . or power outages could intentionally or accidentally erase or alter voting data’ recorded by the machines[1]. In this case, while the machines may be politically impartial, they are still subject to potential human corruption alongside the opportunity for technical faults and breakdowns. Electronic vote-counting machine errors led to almost 2 million ballots being disqualified in the 2000 USA election[2]. Electronic voting systems need a lot more work before we should even consider using them; they certainly do not solve any problems currently raised by manual counting. [1] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/1101_041101_election_voting.html, accessed 24/08/11 [2] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/1101_041101_election_voting.html,, accessed 24/08/11

Title: Electronic voting will create a more cost effective franchise Content: The elderly far more frequently find electronic voting to be a hindrance rather than a help. Those who are partially sighted are unable to see the position on the text blocks on the screen; small controls such as buttons or touch screens create problems; and some cognitively impaired people may find it difficult to remember a PIN number which is used to authenticate the vote[1]. A simple paper ballot is a far more commonly-recognised and straightforward method. In terms of cost, the electronic voting machines or voting programmes would certainly cost a great deal to implement and run[2]. Ultimately, the great risk that electronic voting machines or systems will lose votes[3] outweighs the cost argument: you cannot put a price on a crucial process at the core of every democratic state. [1] http://www.tiresias.org/research/guidelines/e_voting.htm, accessed 24/08/11 [2] http://votingmachines.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000313, accessed 24/08/11 [3] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/01/diebold-audit-l/, accessed 24/08/11

Title: Electronic voting is vulnerable to fraud and subversion Content: Our understanding of online security is improving every day; people feel safe enough to trust their most important details, such as bank details, to the internet[1] – why not their vote? Secure software and encryption protocols have allowed online markets to flourish, with companies such as PayPal inspiring a sense of security among their customers[2]. Any software for remote electronic voting could be scrutinised well in advance. It also removes the potential for identity fraud, which is a problem with current postal voting systems[3]. Each voter could be given a unique password, if necessary alongside something like a special swipe card, ensuring that everybody who is entitled to vote gets a single vote. Given that in many jurisdictions, traditional polling stations do not require voters to provide ID[4], it would arguably be a security improvement on the current situation. [1] http://www.natwest.com/personal/online-banking/awards.ashx, accessed 24/08/11 [2] https://www.paypal.co.uk/uk, accessed 24/08/11 [3] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article521468.ece, accessed 24/08/11 [4] http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/general_election_faq.aspx, accessed 24/08/11

Title: Electronic voting may harm the principle of democratic accountability Content: The numerous faults experienced in trials and small-scale use of electronic voting[1][2] shows that this system is not yet ready for wide use in elections, and gives no indication that it ever will be. The argument that they can provide a faster vote-count is negated by the fact that in many cases they aren’t counting all the votes, but instead missing some out[3]. If the results cannot be trusted, there is no merit in implementing an electronic vote. Furthermore, this motion neglects those who do not have access to electronic systems or the internet; they may end up being disenfranchised if voting went online. This is particularly pertinent for senior citizens who lack the skills to ‘find, retrieve and evaluate’ information found electronically[4]. It is also a disadvantage for those who with a limited income and education, who are ‘most likely to not use the internet or even understand how to use a computer’[5]. 37% of low-income households do not regularly use the internet[6]; this motion would create a two-tier system where already under-represented groups are allowed to fall behind the rest of society. Even public libraries and state-provided resources are suffering cuts under the economic depression[7], which further reduces access for those from poorer backgrounds. This allows real issues of discrimination and alienation to rise. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/04/electronic-voting-machine_n_141119.html, accessed 24/08/11 [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/magazine/06Vote-t.html, accessed 24/08/11 [3] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/magazine/06Vote-t.html, accessed 24/08/11 [4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1550650/, accessed 24/08/11 [5] http://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/disconnected-disenfranchised-and-poor-addressing-digital-inequality-in-america/, accessed 24/08/11 [6] http://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/disconnected-disenfranchised-and-poor-addressing-digital-inequality-in-america/, accessed 24/08/11 [7] http://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/disconnected-disenfranchised-and-poor-addressing-digital-inequality-in-america/, accessed 24/08/11

Title: Electronic voting will create a more cost effective franchise Content: Electronic voting would also save a great deal of money which is currently spent on employing counters and renting venues to be used as polling stations. For example the UK general election in 2005 cost over £80 million to organise[1], Canada’s 2008 election cost around $300 million[2], and the USA presidential election of 2008 was estimated to cost up to $5.3 billion[3]. Electronic voting also brings the opportunity to increase access to those who currently find it difficult to register their votes; for example, electronic voting could be conducted in a minority language for those who find English difficult[4]. In the past, trials of this have been shown to improve voter turnout among minority groups[5]. Electronic voting could also benefit the elderly, as many find it difficult to use the lever-operated ballots currently in use.[6] Using electronic voting ensures that no groups are left out of an essentially democratic process. [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8497014.stm#list, accessed 24/08/11 [2] http://randsco.com/index.php/2008/10/24/p594, accessed 24/08/11 [3] http://randsco.com/index.php/2008/10/24/p594, accessed 24/08/11 [4] http://votingmachines.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000310, accessed 24/08/11 [5] http://votingmachines.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000310, accessed 24/08/11 [6] http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~mdr/teaching/modules04/security/students/SS8.pdf, accessed 24/08/11

Title: Efficiency Content: Because it would not require manual counting and tallying, remote electronic voting would allow the results to be known much faster[1], and would also eliminate the potential for human error, which is a common problem with the current system[2]. For example, in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election of 2011, a clerk discovered around 14,000 unrecorded votes which had been missed by human error – and actually changed the outcome of the election[3]. The clerk is now being questioned regarding her party allegiances under suspicion that she was trying to turn the election into a victory for her favoured candidate[4] – yet another potential for abuse under the current system. Machines, of course, are impartial concerning party allegiances and so eliminate the potential for individual corruption. [1] http://www.capc.umd.edu/rpts/Promise_and_Pitfalls_of_Electronic_Voting.pdf, accessed 24/08/11 [2] http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepoliticalsystem/a/votecounts.htm, accessed 24/08/11 [3] http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0409/Vote-count-human-error-shadows-Wisconsin-Supreme-Court-election, accessed 24/08/11 [4] http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0409/Vote-count-human-error-shadows-Wisconsin-Supreme-Court-election, accessed 24/08/11

Title: Electronic voting can make the franchise more accessible Content: In many Western democracies, voter turnout has been falling while voter apathy appears to be rising. In the UK, voter turnout fell sharply between 1997-2000, and the last general election in 2010 saw only 65% of potential voters cast a vote[1]. In the USA, the federal election of 2010 saw only 37.8% of potential voters cast their vote[2]. Voter turnouts across Europe follow this trend[3]. When so few people participate in the key act of democracy – voting for the political leader of the country – it begins to raise worrying questions about the legitimacy of that democracy in the first place. If electronic or internet voting was introduced as an option alongside more traditional polling methods, it would expands the accessibility of the voting system in general. Internet or electronic voting would be a strategic practical measure. It would make voting convenient for busy modern citizens because it minimalises the amount of effort each individual has to contribute – namely, they do not have to travel to the polling stations[4]. As such, it removes physical restrictions on the voting process and becomes more universally accessible. This would prevent people from being unable to vote because they are ‘too busy’[5] – whether this is simply because their local polling station is too far away for them to commute to, or to fit in alongside their other daily responsibilities based at work or home[6][7]. [1] http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm, accessed 22/08/11 [2] http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html, accessed 22/08/11 [3] http://www.euractiv.com/en/elections/voter-turnout-european-election-lower/article-117868, accessed 22/08/11. [4] https://files.nyu.edu/tsc223/public/ElectronicVoting.pdf, accessed 25/08/11 [5] http://www.census.gov/prod/3/98pubs/cenbr984.pdf, accessed 22/08/11 [6] In the USA: http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepoliticalsystem/a/whynotvote.htm, accessed 22/08/11 [7] In the UK: http://www.census.gov/prod/3/98pubs/cenbr984.pdf, accessed 22/08/11

Title: Remote electronic voting can be conducted very safely. Content: Our online security is improving every day; people feel safe enough to trust their most important details, such as bank details, to the internet[1] – why not their vote? Secure software and encryption protocols have allowed online markets to flourish, with companies such as PayPal inspiring a sense of security among their customers[2]. Any software for remote electronic voting could be scrutinised well in advance. It also removes the potential for identity fraud, which is a problem with current postal voting systems[3]. Each voter could be given a unique password, if necessary alongside something like a special swipe card, ensuring that everybody who is entitled to vote gets a single vote. Given that in many jurisdictions, traditional polling stations do not require voters to provide ID[4], it would arguably be a security improvement on the current situation. [1] http://www.natwest.com/personal/online-banking/awards.ashx, accessed 24/08/11 [2] https://www.paypal.co.uk/uk, accessed 24/08/11 [3] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article521468.ece, accessed 24/08/11 [4] http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/general_election_faq.aspx, accessed 24/08/11

Title: allow the use of electronic and internet voting in state-organised elections Content: Electronic voting can make the franchise more accessible

Title: A valid picture Identification should be a requirement to vote. Content: By the definition of your title, I was speaking off topic for the previous Rounds. However, the only federally mandated election law change suggestions for future Federal Elections have been not a picture ID, but a voter ID. Regardless, I will propose a counter-plan advocating voter accountability through a paper trail. The greatest risk to switching votes (D. Josef Thompson, University of Chicago) is tampering with electronic machines. Because votes are analyzed more on the county precinct level instead of the voting locations, discrepencies are much harder to find. In the 2000 and 2004 elections, he estimates, that there were more incidences of voter fraud by one individual than there were electronic machine tampering. However, the percentage of votes changed by machine tampering outweighed the percentage of votes changed by voter fraud by a ratio of 3:1, while even counting invalidated absentee ballots equals the approximate number of votes by voter fraud. I will now assess the American government's ability to improve its voting system. The American government only has the resources available to take one option: paper trails for electronic machines OR voter/picture ID because of the official documentation and training purposes. The winner of this debate is the Negative side because its counter-plan of instituting a paper trail defeats the Affirmative plan of picture Identification at the voting booth. Thanks, The Colonel

Title: Electronic voting may harm the principle of democratic accountability Content: Computer literacy is constantly on the rise[1][2]. In state-run secondary schools, children are provided with information and technology classes which helps to bridge any existing divide[3], and there are discussions about extending these lessons to primary schools. Easily-accessible community classes are also available to seniors[4][5]. Moreover, given the opportunity to save money through electronic voting rather than having to pay for polling station venues, manual vote counters and so on, this money could easily be redirected to provide computer lessons for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, or to funnel into state libraries and public computer resources. This mechanism is a much more efficient way of making sure that everybody is able to participate. [1] Children in the UK: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/5223192.stm, accessed 24/08/11 [2] In the USA: http://computerliteracyusa.web.officelive.com/default.aspx [3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7770469.stm, accessed 24/08/11 [4] Across the USA: http://pittsburgh.about.com/od/computer_classes/Computer_Training_Classes_User_Groups.htm, accessed 24/08/11 [5] In the UK: http://www.ageuk.org.uk/work-and-learning/, accessed 24/08/11

Title: allow the use of electronic and internet voting in state-organised elections Content: Electronic voting will create a more cost effective franchise

Title: Direct democracy would speed up political processes. If urgent action were needed, decisions could ... Content: Direct democracy would speed up political processes. If urgent action were needed, decisions could be made much more quickly (particularly with electronic voting) without the issue getting bogged down by political parties fighting one another, scoring points and trying to slow down the system.

Title: Modern technology makes consultation easier than ever. Content: Most developed nations are representative democracies, in which we elect people to represent us and make decisions on our behalf. We retain the ultimate control over these representatives at the ballot box, and if we disagree with the decisions they have made we can vote for different candidates at the next election. Just because we can consult the public more easily nowadays, that is no reason to destroy a system that has generally served us well for decades and, in some cases, centuries. Furthermore, electronic voting is still in its infancy, and liable to fraud and technical problems. [1] [1] ”E-Voting Rights”, Electronic Frontier Foundation. http://www.eff.org/issues/e-voting

Title: Engagement with democracy Content: If voting were conducted electronically, we would have no guarantee that an individual’s vote was privately and freely made. Instead, voting becomes open to manipulation where the head of the household, or another figure, may cast votes for others to try and ensure their preferred outcome. Indeed, under the status quo there are still instances of organised corruption where votes are sold or bullied out of people[1][2], despite the fact that this was the exact reason that the secret ballot was originally introduced[3]. Electronic voting would just take corruption further out of our hands by hiding it from public view; this would be detrimental to democratic process. [1] http://www.usip.org/files/MC1/MC1-Part2Section15.pdf, accessed 24/08/11 [2] www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN03667.pdf , accessed 24/08/11 [3] http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8ujf3YM9AfwC&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=secret+ballot+prevent+corruption&source=bl&ots=6Z5cAyLtLe&sig=-yPKNj6ikiTouVLKSthPmYbBtEA&hl=en&ei=mj9VTufACMeKhQehwJWkBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=secret%20ballot%20prevent%20corruption&f=false, accessed 24/08/11

Title: Electronic voting can make the franchise more accessible Content: Voter apathy cannot be solely attributed to having to walk to your local polling station. It can also be attributed to general disillusionment with the campaigning political parties, and the idea that none of them will perform well in government[1]. Political parties which focus more strongly on national rather than constituency campaigning can also inspire voter apathy[2]. The problems behind voter apathy are far greater than can be solved by trying to change the practical aspect of voting; it is the fact that voters often feel neglected by their government which is a far greater concern[3]. [1] http://otago.ourarchive.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10523/1456/voter_turnout.pdf, accessed 24/08/11 [2] http://otago.ourarchive.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10523/1456/voter_turnout.pdf, accessed 24/08/11 [3] http://www.independentliaison.com.au/Independent_values.html, accessed 24/08/11

Title: allow the use of electronic and internet voting in state-organised elections Content: Remote electronic voting can be conducted very safely.

Title: allow the use of electronic and internet voting in state-organised elections Content: Efficiency

Title: allow the use of electronic and internet voting in state-organised elections Content: Electronic voting is vulnerable to fraud and subversion

Title: allow the use of electronic and internet voting in state-organised elections Content: Electronic voting may harm the principle of democratic accountability

Title: Electronic voting is vulnerable to fraud and subversion Content: No networked commuter system is immune to attack or subversion. By their very nature, electronic voting systems must be inter connected and in continuous communication with one another. As a consequence, the devices and methods used to gather votes can also serve as access points to the larger network of vote gathering and counting systems. The most ‘secure’ of websites have been recently hacked. For example, Paypal was hacked by Lulzsec in response to the Wikileaks scandal[1]. Lulzsec also hacked the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)[2], supposedly the source of all their national intelligence and top secret information. If anything, recent events have shown us that the internet is an unstable medium for people to conduct personal or professional affairs; we certainly should not allow our voting systems to become even more vulnerable to this kind of attack. A better way to prevent identity fraud would be the simple measure of now requiring polling stations to ask for ID, rather than going to the extreme of online voting. [1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2011/06/17/pei-lulzsec-personal-internet-accounts-584.html, accessed 24/08/11 [2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8578704/CIA-website-hacked-by-Lulz-Security.html, accessed 24/08/11

Title: allow the use of electronic and internet voting in state-organised elections Content: Democratisation

Title: allow the use of electronic and internet voting in state-organised elections Content: Modernisation

Title: allow the use of electronic and internet voting in state-organised elections Content: Engagement with democracy

Title: The electoral college system is more fair and effective than the popular vote system. Content: The electoral college may have made sense many years ago when it took weeks to hand deliver votes by horseback to Washington, DC but it no longer makes sense. With today's technology it is possible to tally everyone's vote quickly and securely. Unfortunately, the current implementation of electronic voting is lacking from a security perspective but that shouldn't affect the scope of this debate as it could be fixed and implemented using current technology. Giving more power to residents of Wyoming over the residents of California is simply not fair. Each and every american is as much as American as the other one and each of their vote should be counted equally regardless of any state borders. Of course California should have more influence as it contains many more Americans than Wyoming. While states can and should regulate themselves, when it comes to our nation, we are all the same. As far as susceptibility to manipulation and corruption, with proper multi-factor authentication, authorization, cryptography and other strong security controls being used, a modern system can be significantly more trustworthy than this archaic system. The current system rely on trusting people which are often shown to be corrupt [1]. Using blockchain technology to vote could be used to provide much more secure voting with built-in validation vs. the current system [2]. In addition, as you have stated, 1% of electors sometime do not vote per their constituents which is 1% too much. A properly designed, vetted, tested and peer reviewed algebraic solution to voting would represent the will of the people 100% of the time. In conclusion, the electoral college had a purpose that it no longer serves. By switching to a better and more secure system, the will of the people would be respected 100% of the time and the risk of tampering with election results would be significantly reduced. Sources: http://www.politico.com... [1] https://followmyvote.com... [2]

Title: Mandatory voting does not enhance legitimacy of govt. Content: Even if compulsory voting allows for abstention, legitimacy is not improved. It merely allows the government to say 'because there is a 100% turnout, this government is 100% legitimate', which is clearly not the case. Donkey votes, random votes, "just for the fun of it" votes, protest votes and abstentions do NOT contribute to improved legitimacy of the government. There is a reason why some people are less politically active. They neither know nor care about politics. How can their forced input add legitimacy to the mix?

Title: voting materials for U.S citizens should be provided in native languages Content: The increase in the cost of voting ballots, would not be an issue, if those wishing to vote in their native language, were only allowed to do so on electronic ballot machines. A simple reprogram is all that would be needed. You said "We cant afford to give out ballots to someone that cant vote properly" In 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson, had the Voting Rights Act passed. This act allowed all american citizens the right to vote, ignoring any discrimination. To quote Lyndon B. Johnson, "Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote." This act already covers language disabilities, and there fore it is the government and states duty to provide voting supplies not based on any discrimination. If you deny the right to vote based on language you are discriminating against those that do not speak english. By doing this, you are simply creating another example of the 1960's, when African Americans were not allowed to vote. America does not need this kind of negative attention, when we are already getting enough from the war in Iraq.

Title: Online voting should replace traditional voting. Content: Rules: No word play on semantics. No specific format. If you accept, please present a case and don't just forfeit. Thanks in advance! I affirm the resolution. C-1: Many entities use various forms of online voting with success. Examples include Major League Baseball All Stars, and Debate.org (Sources www.mlb.com & www.debate.org) The basic premise requires a person to log in and vote. Failsafe measures to prevent fraud would be 1 vote per SSN. The Social Security Administration has dates of birth on file. Thus, it stands to reason that persons 18 and older could vote one time. C-2: Numerous elections have had questionable results and recounts, most notably that of Florida or Iran. Such a system would likely alleviate inaccurate vote counting as it would be done electronically, and tallied as the votes occur. C-3: Absentee voting has it's share of potential debacles as well. Online voting alleviates the process of mailing ballots, having them marked, mailed back, opened and counted. C-4: Elderly and shut in voters may not get the opportunity to vote traditionally. Having access online would enable them to have a better opportunity to vote. CONCLUSION: Given the unreliability & inaccessibility of traditional voting, it passes the common sense test to switch to online voting. It is possible to create a reliable program that would be protected against hackers and pirates, that would not only simplify, but also uncomplicate the entire voting process. Further, greater accessibility suggests that more registered voters would actually vote, which is the very essence of what a democracy is intended to be. Many people fought for the rigth to vote, thus we have the 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th amendmentst o our national constitution. Thank you!

Title: There are alternatives that tackle the real causes of voter disengagement Content: The benefits obtained from compulsory voting cannot be gained from any of the strategies mentioned by the opposition. Compulsory voting can enhance a sense of community, as everyone is in it together. This can be especially helpful in bringing new people in to community life. It also forces the silent majority to think about elections which safeguards from extremism. improve this

Title: Polling stations during Elections should be conducted over a longer period than a single day Content: I often wonder if the single day voting is meant to curb voter fraud. No I don't think so. I think its discrimination against the poor and those that have to work 2 or 3 jobs to survive and feed their family. Suggestion 1 to improve voting: I think that the first time people register to vote (age 18 or above) they should be required to give a fingerprint, than at least there would be a record to identify an individual without having to require a photo ID. I don't see how a fingerprint would be invasion of privacy and it would also be free. You only have to prove who you are once with a birth certificate or other suffiecient form of ID (barring any scaring on your fingers). If this database could be used solely for elections and not accessible to law enforcement (of course could we trust them?) You'd only know a person's finger pad pattern, not what they look like and people would not have to have a photo ID if they didn't want to. Then, you could take your time to vote. Voting at your own convenience. Currently its just a tv spectacle with winners being declared often before even 50% of the vote is in for districts and states. Its not as if the switch from incumbent to the next elected official is happening that next day. Usually its like 3 months till the handover. Pretty much everything must kowtow to the tv networks. Too much money for tv. Sports are slaves to tv as well. For those that want national ID cards or required photo IDs YET they want total privacy and no records to match who voted for who, you can't have both. Suggestion #2: Better yet, align voting and taxes, then if you want to vote you have to pay your taxes (which should already be the case, even if you owe nothing or expect a refund) No taxes, no vote. Citizens benefit from services and infrastructure provided by taxes and it is their duty to pay them, voting should also be a duty of a citizen. EVEN putting the voting date on Saturday is still going to be impossible for some people. There aren't absentee ballots everywhere. Why not go further and make Voting Day a national holiday? Say President's Day? or Veteran's Day? All non-essential businesses are closed and all essential ones required to only have half day. We have holidays for really stupid crap (some just commercial holidays really), but we should celebrate voting. Representation is what we revolted from England for Still, having enough time to vote over the period of time of a week, a few weeks, or some agreed upon length of time, would be best and not have any more problems than we already have. At least then there could be no excuse for not voting. As of now many people have an excuse and some a legitimate complaint Also, voter intimidation at a polling station would take a lot more effort if it had to be manned for longer than a single day and hopefully happen less

Title: allow the use of electronic and internet voting in state-organised elections Content: Voter apathy

Title: NON VOTING IN ELECTIONS MUST BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY Content: The long arm of the law is not a process reform. People need to want to vote, and currently there's nothing worth voting for. Converting over to a run off election could certainly help get more people involved and give a voice to those who previously did not have a voice. But, honestly, you don't fix a "lack of interest" with a gun to your temple. Also, voting isn't a sacred duty. There's noting sacred about it. You go into the polling place and put a mark next to whoever the Democrat in the election is and leave. Nothing holy or even slightly difficult about it. Democracy doesn't flourish with a boot to the throat. We would have roughly the same government today as we would have had if we forced people to vote. The choices aren't that great and for the most part voting doesn't change the outcome. For example, did you know that the voting rate is better in Cuba and in Saddam's Iraq than it is in the US, and they only had one party systems... and similar provisions to your rules. We could do many thing to improve the voting and to make the voting count for more, we could elect better people and fix the system, we could do a better job at counting the votes cast, and keeping legal voters on the voter rolls... and we should. Forcing people to the polls does not make magical democracy fairies come around to fix all the problem. Random disinterested people vote when they need to vote, and don't when they don't. Non-voting in elections is near the bottom of problems with government.

Title: Imabench's vote for my debate was completely wrong Content: First off here is the debate we are talking about:http://www.debate.org..." Imabench voted for awesomeness because of his claim that I didn't have a convincing argument"Which is completely legal....."He completely ignores the fact that my OPPONENT did NOT have an argument at all."Maybe you were looking at a different debate, here is what I saw. Awesomeness started a debate about why personal electronic devices such as cell phones, tablets, and laptop computers should be allowed in a classroom, and proceeded on listing 18 reasons about why they would be beneficial to learning in class, which I have rewritten below. The ones I have underlined were the ones that made the most sense to me1 - They have built in dictionaries and tools to improve grammar2 - They can integrate video to make learning more stimulating3 - Some have access to newspapers4 - They save money on textbooks5 - They save money on fictional books6 - Valuable skills in logic7 - Access to educational websites8 - Interactive and extra curricular learning9 - It improves graduation rates in schools that implement these policies10 - It improves Standardized Test Scores in schools that implement these policies11 - Improves writing skills among students in schools that also implement these technologies12 - Twice as many students meet state standards in courses compared to those students who dont have this access to these devices13 - Encourages diversity14 - More interaction in learning (he counted this twice)15 - Peer feedback16 - Can encourage the flow of ideas between individuals17 - Efficient working where students can access work on different computers18 - Improves learning experience19 - Improves grades in 76% of cases where students have access to these gadgetsThat was the Pro's opening arguments, the Con (DeadBrownApple) responded not by showing that personal devices like phones more often are used for social media and prove to be just distractions, or source any evidence suggesting that the Pro's claims are false, and instead bases his entire argument that electronic devices decrease the quality of education, even though Awesomeness showed four times how it has a dramatic increase on it. DBA then starts by saying that the frontal lobes of these students are not fully developed and thus would decrease their performance, but he does not show why students still show improvement in their grades with these devices despite allegedly having undeveloped frontal lobes. Then after that DBA Immediately quotes that "I do agree with the contention that Electronic Devices administered by the school would help in the quality of education. "Which completely nullifies everything he just argued and reinforces Awesomeness's claim that these electronic devices do help students. He then gives a borderline semantics argument about how since the students dont own the devices and are renting them from the school that these devices all of a sudden cant be used as evidence. After that, DBA drops all other arguments, dismisses the rest of them as inelegible since "they can be learned without electronical devices" and then argues that since they dont need those devices that they shouldnt be allowed, even though the Pro only was arguing that they IMPROVE these things. That was round 2, In Round 3 awesomeness responds to the few arguments that DBA did not drop and argues that these devices could be put away so as they would not be used for cheating. DBA then does the unthinkable and then starts to counter the arguments that he had previously dropped in the final round when Awesomeness cannot argue against is and after DBA had already dropped all of those arguments. On top of that poor conduct DBA even finishes the debate by saying, "You basically argued for the wrong thing and therefore it is automatically void. You have lost this debate. At the very least, I hope you understood why you lost this debate."And that alone could have cost him conduct, along with arguing dropped points when Pro could not defend his own points because it was the final round========================================================================================================================================================As for my actual vote, I could have easily given the Pro (Awesomeness) arguments and sources and conduct since the Con (DBA) didnt source any statistics and had very poor conduct, particularly at the end of the debate. But instead I simply gave the arguments point to the Pro (Awesomness) since the con dropped over half of the Pro's arguments, then readdressed them at the very end of the debate, and still wasnt very convincing. So my vote was not only justified, but I was giving DBA some mercy by only giving Awesomeness 3 points when I could have justifiably given him 6.

Title: Improves standards in political governance. Content: Increased use of referendums is unlikely to make much difference to the quality of governance. Governments and state commissions will retain most of their power, as only a small proportion of laws will be put before the public vote even if use of referendums is increased. It will certainly make no difference to the level of corruption. As for corporate lobbyists, it can be argued that increased use of referendums will actually increase the influence of such groups. (See Opposition argument five, below.)

Title: for the increased use of referendums. Content: Improves standards in political governance.

Title: Remote electronic voting can be conducted very safely. Content: The most ‘secure’ of websites have been recently hacked. For example, Paypal was hacked by Lulzsec in response to the Wikileaks scandal[1]. Lulzsec also hacked the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)[2], supposedly the source of all their national intelligence and top secret information. If anything, recent events have shown us that the internet is an unstable medium for people to conduct personal or professional affairs; we certainly should not allow our voting systems to become even more vulnerable to this kind of attack. A better way to prevent identity fraud would be the simple measure of now requiring polling stations to ask for ID, rather than going to the extreme of online voting. [1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2011/06/17/pei-lulzsec-personal-internet-accounts-584.html, accessed 24/08/11 [2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8578704/CIA-website-hacked-by-Lulz-Security.html, accessed 24/08/11

Title: DDO should keep a voting system with multiple categories Content: Con must show that there is a significant problem with the present system and that changing the voting system will fix the problem. Every debater who has been around for a while will say they think they should have won a debate they lost, and they are right at least some of the time. So how do we improve judging? Con argues that by eliminating all standards as to what is good and bad in a debate, voting will improve. I think it should go the other way. Better voting comes from having common standards as to what is important, and in making debaters and voters aware of that. Judges of academic debates are presumed to have a good understanding of what's important. We cannot safely make that presumption here.There are no clear examples of bad outcomes from strategic voting on DDO Voters sometimes shade their voting strategically. If a voter believes strongly that one debater ought to win a debate, he will tend to award more of the seven points to the side he thinks should win. The voter may be correct in his judgment about who should win. He may be enthusiastic about the subject and read the debate very carefully, making a reasonable judgment about each category. Or he may not be so careful and just make a subjective appraisal of by how much he believes the side he favors won, which could be unfair. A vote counted as suspect by one side is likely to be counted as unusually perceptive by the other side. How many debates have been wrongly decided by strategic voting? In a close debate strategic voters will tend to cancel automatically. If the suspect votes make no difference in the outcome, we should be satisfied that they either offset or do not affect the tide of voting. Con offered only one example of a debate where there was a potential that strategic voting affected an outcome. In that debate, more people voted for the losing side than the winning side. But Con just assumed the outcome was unfair, without arguing it was in fact unfair. I had voted on that debate and at the time judged it to be very close. The debate could have gone either way, so there is no cause for complaint. Without even a single clear example of an unfair vote, Con has not established either that there is a problem of strategic voting unfairly affecting outcomes, or that up-or-down voting would provide an improvement.DDO debates show the change would produce more ties Of twenty debates examined, in only one was there a reversal of the winner and loser if each vote was presumed to translate to a full vote for one side or the other. The 0-1, 0-1, 0-2 voters might have called the debate a tie instead. Again it wasn't clear whether that made the voting more fair or less fair. Con dismisses my sample of twenty debate as too small, but con offered no data at all. A sample of 20 is not definitive, but it gives a reasonable idea of what is going on. I used the Bidwell-Wilson approximation to the confidence limits on the binomial distribution to get the error bounds. [10.http://en.wikipedia.org... If found in my sample that 17 of 20 debates were unchanged by up-or-down voting. The 95% confidence interval is that between 13 and 19 debates would be unchanged. The increased number of ties is put between 1 and 7. The number of reversals is between one debate in five and one in 120. Since Con only cited one reversal, even when pressed, it's likely the number is on the rare end of the interval. Clearly more debates would end in a tie because of the quantization, in my sample twice as many. I think it is less fair to the debaters to declare a tie when voters considering the categories thought that one side had won. How many debaters will say, “The new voting system is terrific, I'm getting more tied scores now!'? All subjective judging benefits from standards Con argues that the analogy of debate voting to judging subjective sports is invalid because debating is not an athletic competition. But the object of the competition is irrelevant to the logical process of scoring a subjective competition. In terms of judging, subjective sports, dog shows, flower shows, and pie baking competitions are alike in having subjective judging. The goal is to establish both for competitors and judges guidelines for what is better and what is worse, and how much each category counts. Con claims that because academic debate uses a primitive up-or-down system so therefore, DDO debates should use that system. The subjective sports moved to more sophisticated voting systems as a result of voting scandals. If academic debating became a competition having general interest and suffered a scandal from biased voting, academic debate would have no alternative but to move to more sophisticated point system as well. Despite the use of a point system, the Olympic figure skating in Sochi still had a voting scandal. But there is no effective Moderator checking on judges in the Olympics. A moderator could examine each point addition and deduction, and an inflated score would then be very difficult to defend. Reverting to an up-or-down system wouldn't cure the judging problem, because that was already tried at the Olympics without success. Having standards doesn't work if there is no threat of enforcement.The silly poll Con points to a poll of debaters that revealed that each debater thought that strategic voting was used on their debates. That's a standard bit of nonsense used all the time by poll takers. It's along the lines of “Are you satisfied with current government policy on X?” No one is completely satisfied, so there will a high percentage saying “No.” Upon getting the expecting ”no,” proponents then proclaim that they have a ringing endorsement for policy Y, which was not mentioned in the poll. I would have answered “yes” to the poll as well. However, my remedy is to better educate voters and to improve the ability to moderate voting. That choice wasn't posed.Not simpler, better Con said I wanted a simpler voting system. I don't. I want to keep the present system. I allowed the weights on categories could be tweaked, but I think they are now about right. What I'm proposing is a more elaborate system available as an option to help voters who want to know more detail on how to vote decide who should win each category. The same guidelines would be used by moderators. Saying “Vote for whomever you thought did best.” doesn't work, because "best" is undefined. It doesn't say, for example, that the relevance and quality of sources is far more important than the number of sources. It doesn't say what is a serious conduct violation and what is not. It leaves everything to the intuition of the voter, and that is not a good idea, particularly with the highly mixed character of DDO voters. When everyone uses there own standards, there are no grounds for claiming bias. It is officially arbitrary.Academic debate is not the real world I did not say that academic debating was worthless. I said it does not reflect the real world of jobs, community organizations, and politics. A gave a list of the significant differences between real world debate and academic debate. Con ignored every item I listed without giving counter arguments as to why the difference was unimportant. Con asserted that everyone wants to live in the world of academic debate forever. That's impossible. For example, conduct is a problem in academic debate, because debaters know that bad conduct is sure to be punished. Academic judges are individually selected. Con did not address any of the differences. My study of randomly selected debates showed the categories were working well. People were, to perhaps a surprising degree, considering each aspect of the debate. Making voting simpler makes it unpredictable, because each person has complete freedom to decide what is important and what is not. Judging can be improved only by making the standards more clear, not moving closer to polling.

Title: Compulsory voting reduces power of lobbying groups. Content: A benefit of compulsory voting is that it makes it more difficult for special interest groups to vote themselves into power. Under a non-compulsory voting system, if fewer people vote then it is easier for smaller sectional interests and lobby groups to control the outcome of the political process. The outcome of the election reflects less the will of the people (Who do I want to lead the country?) but instead reflects who was logistically more organized and more able to convince people to take time out of their day to cast a vote (Do I even want to vote today?).

Title: on balance does the supremes court decision in citezens united harm the election process Content: ok so i would like to start by by thanking master riddle for accepting this topic and would like to encourage everyone to comment on what i could improve on. With that said here is my case: Contention 1: The Citizens united ruling increase voter turnout. According to "the Center for Responsive Politics, in the 2012 presidential race over $380,000,000 have been raised by super PACs and $330,000,000 have been spent".This money according to the wall street journal is so super PACs can run advertisements for or against political candidates.. This is important because these advertisements are essential for maintaining voter turnout according to Paul freedman of the University of Virginia "respondents were as much as 10 percentages Points more likely to vote if they watched television in media Markets that were bombarded with presidential ads". Furthermore according to Dr. Hillygus of Duke University "Among those who early in the campaign did not intend to vote, exposure to ads increased intentions to vote by 18 percentage points". The impact of this is that by increasing voter turnout we get a more accurate representation of the publics will which is the purpose of the election process. Contention 2: citizens united allows voters to make informed decisions According to political scientist David Downing "without freedom of media and wider freedom of speech people cannot make informed decisions on how they should vote". This is important because according to Hans von Spakovsky, former member of the Federal Election Commission "many associations we have in this country (no matter which side of the political aisle they are on), from the NAACP to the Sierra Club to the National Rifle Association, are also corporations. Yet those corporate associations were prohibited under penalty of criminal and civil sanctions from expressing the views of their members. This means that before this landmark decisions many important organizations where barred from expressing their opinions and thus the public lacked vital information that may have significantly affected the outcome of previous elections. Lastly this increase in corporate spending does not favor either political party since according to matt bia a correspondent for the new York times campaign spending tends to be cyclical since when one party increases its spending the other party tends to mobilize and increase its spending. Thus not only does citizens united create more informed voters but it also prevents any one party from gaining an advantage. Contention 3: Citizens united increases transparency Transparency is one of the most important aspects of the election process according to political watchdog the electoral knowledge "Transparency makes institutional systems and the actions/decisions they take widely accessible and understood [and] It is difficult to maintain or publicly justify a system that permits abuse and corruption". This is important because before this landmark decisions political donors would use social-welfare groups or 527"s to make political contributions. These social welfare groups according to New York correspondent mat bia are unlike super PAC"s generally not required to disclose their donors. This means that by allowing the creation of super PAC"s the Supreme Court has given the public better access to political finance and thus increased the transparency of the electoral process. Sources: http://blog.heritage.org... http://www.slate.com... https://docs.google.com... http://www.nytimes.com... http://www.bowdoin.edu... http://jurist.org... http://aceproject.org...

Title: Children Should Have The Right To Vote In Elections Content: The education system will be improved.

Title: Technology to give all a vote Content: v

Title: Would complicate elections Content: Elections can be confusing enough already; there are numerous levels of elections which often all are voted for on the same day so that turnout is high for all the elections. As a result voters often get numerous different ballots to fill in; the system for voting in each may well be different and are often complex. Adding that sixteen year olds can vote in one election and not the other simply adds to this complexity in polling stations meaning more mistakes are likely to be made. Lack of knowledge of voting process, increased complexity of voting process, and long ballots decrease accuracy in voting.[1] The first, and possibly also the second are factors that this lowering of the voting age will influence – so this change would mean increasing the numbers of spoilt ballots. [1] Bederson, Benjamin B., et al., ‘The not so simple act of voting: An examination of voter errors with electronic voting’, University of Maryland, http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/apworkshop/herrnson2007.pdf, p.3

Title: Weekend voting would be a more sensible solution Content: If the purpose is to increase turnout, weekend voting would be the more sensible option. It gives people more free time in which to vote, and doesn't have the problems that coercion brings with it. It doesn't address the wider problem of apathy, but treats the non-voting problem more acceptably than compulsory voting does. Better yet, introduce a public holiday on election days and provide free public transport to and from polling stations.

Title: Democratisation Content: If it worked, online voting could allow more use of direct democracy methods. However, direct democracy is not in itself a better system, and still contains many dangers. Snap online polls could easily express an opinion which has not been properly thought through; the current voting system is more likely to result in considered voting as citizens have to make the effort to get to the polling stations in the first place. Furthermore, a low turnout or insecure systems could allow motivated minorities to use frequent online ballots in order to impose their will on the majority. The very ease of online voting could actually result in worse policy than under the status quo.

Title: Persuasion is more effective than coercion Content: Forcing people into voting when they are disengaged from the politic process will exacerbate this problem; no one likes doing something simply because they have to. The election results from compulsory voting may not be a representative view of society, than the current systems. Just because people are required to vote does not mean they become more politically engaged than they were before. Rather than forcing people to vote, more should be done to engage the public in political life. Government transparency should be further encouraged as well as evaluating to what extent the current voting system causes low voter turnout. Low turnout is best cured by more education. Instead of trying to engage people by force, how about introducing political education in schools and encouraging political conversation. How about educating the public on how politics affects them? Citizenship classes should be taught to students who are approaching voting age, as it would teach the importance of the electoral process, and the history of the suffragette movement, the reform bills of the 19th century and the responsibilities of living in a democracy. The government should be trying to engage people by other means, not compulsory voting. Compulsory voting may improve low turnout but will not affect the root problem- what people actually think about politics. In essence it is just relieving the side effects without curing the disease. improve this

Title: The United States should adopt Instant Runoff Voting. Content: Thanks for the quick response. 1. There is a very low chance of that happening. There are loopholes in any voting system, but they're highly unlikely. As far as the not ranking = ranking last, I see what you're saying but I was talking about if there were several candidates whom you don't like. Then, it wouldn't be the same. 2. Adding candidates in the status quo can alter the outcome of the election. The problem you're referring to is the Condorcet method. But IRV solves for that, while the status quo does not. http://www.guardian.co.uk... http://en.wikipedia.org... The second link has a great graph showing the advantages and disadvantages of all. You can see that IRV solves for much more than Plurality (FPTP). I'll include it in the comment section. Officials can find it much easier to tamper with electronic machines. All they need is a hacker. http://www.youtube.com... I need evidence that the U.S. can't mandate IRV, states don't award proportionately for the presidential race (final). Multi-party systems can be a great thing, they provide much more balance. On the large global political scale, our Democrats and Republicans are very similar. That's the problem. If you want to vote for who YOU ACTUALLY AGREE WITH, then you can't do it in FPTP without wasting your vote. This way, you have a backup. *Overall, you can see that IRV may not be the best mathematical system, but it's the easiest for people to understand, it blows the current system out of the water and makes it look prehistoric, and it makes the most sense. I urge a Pro vote. Thanks to my opponent.

Title: The Voting System on Debate.org Needs VAST Improvement Content: It seems obvious to me: anyone can set up an account on DDO, search for their favorite topics, and easily vote on whatever they want, without even reading the arguments. The resolution is that SOMETHING must be done to improve the voting system on this site. I will give a few ideas that could be incorporated by the DDO creators, but am open to any other suggestions: 1) Show how each person voted. 2) Moniter the votes more closely. 3) Show a feed on each account's page that reveals what they voted on and how they voted. 4) Have each voter write a short, detailed paragraph on why he/she voted that way, which fellow members can see and report if they find something wrong with it. Also, I am not able to vote, even though I have a cell phone. Why? I do not know. I have sent in my number multiple times, and have never received an approval text. This must be remedied as well. Remember, this debate is focusing on whether or not the DDO Voting System is flawed, NOT on whether or not my specific ideas are "the best". I await an opponent

Title: Morality Improves Society Content: I guess now we vote...

Title: New Age Electronic Government Content: Direct democracy via the Internet is impractical given the modern limitations of technology and of access to technology. Furthermore the amount of legislation and administration involved in our modern society would overwhelm the time constraints required to allow for "every" person to vote on everything. Your original premise is science fiction.

Title: Compulsory Voting is the Only Way to be Truly Democratic Content: "They have no option to remain neutral but to cast a vote one way or the other" This is not actually true. Due to the secret ballot, it is possible to cast 'informal' votes, which do not rank all candidates or similar. These votes do not count. It is also not enforced very strictly in most jurisdictions, meaning it is easy to remain neutral. The benefit of compulsory voting is that it forces people to really think about doing this. Thus, it increases engagement in government, and thus is surely better according to democratic principles. "As I mentioned before, coerced voting tempts uneducated people to vote for a random candidate or cause" Random voting is not a major problem in jurisdictions with compulsory voting. This is because compulsory voting increases people's awareness politically. People who would otherwise just stay at home instead educate themselves at least rudimentarily. "Let us consider the following scenario: At a voting booth for an election, an uneducated voter says to himself, "I know nothing about candidate A or candidate B, nor do I care about the outcome of the election, but since I am required to vote by law I will flip a coin to decide who I shall vote for. "" You assume the 45% of people who do not vote are not at all engaged with politics. Many of these people have opinions on politics, just not ones strong enough to act on. These people are forced to vote in compulsory voting, meaning that the opinions of all people are represented, not just the opinions of the people who feel strongly about politics. Those who truly have no opinion can still cast an informal vote under compulsory voting, or educate themselves until they get an opinion. "When the 45% less educated population is forced to vote, it leads to worse representation of the people's choice of law or candidate, and in effect becomes a violation of true democracy. " When I said that less educated people were less likely to vote, I meant educated in a schooling sense, not educated about the candidates. Sorry for not making that clearer. Anyway, 'the people' is all the people, uninformed or informed, and a voting system should represent all of them. You seem to mistake throughout the debate "the people's choice" for "the well-informed people's choice". The random voters are still people, and should have their votes count, because democracy is for all people. Summary: I believe I have stated a good case for why compulsory voting is more democratic. Compulsory voting increases the government's representation of diverse parts of the population. Compulsory voting makes a government have a true mandate, and be a true government of the people. Non-compulsory voting makes unrepresentative governments, which is surely not democratic.

Title: for the increased use of referendums. Content: Modern technology makes consultation easier than ever.

Title: Debate.org voter data should be publicly available Content: My opponent brings to light the Vote Removal System (VRS), which is certainly something this site needs. However, the resolution did not state that Publicly Available Voting (PAV) was the only means by which the site is to be improved. In fact, ideally, both improvements should see the light of day. I present four scenarios ranked in order from most improving to least improving. 1. VRS and PAV. 2. PAV. 3. VRS. 4. Status Quo. By far, the best approach would be to institute both programs. The VRS has the excellent virtue of reversing malicious voting practices, which is vital in deterring would be abusers. However, abusers have to be clearly exposed before such action can be executed. Without PAV, the admin (and there is only one at the moment) would have the burden of monitoring dozens of debates everyday all on his onesie (savvy?). However, the addition of the PAV means members can spot suspicious activity and report it to the admin, allowing the admin to examine and--if appropriate--fix the debates as they come. A perfect synergy between the web master and its constituents. If, for some reason, both systems cannot be implemented and only one must be chosen, the PAV is the better solution. As it currently stands, the only deterrent against abusers is banning. Of course, as my opponent pointed out, this does not prevent abuse as much as slow it down. But then again, it takes weeks for the admin to single out the abusive accounts and ban them. With the PAV, abusers could be much more quickly identified and reported. Sure, abusers could still create new accounts, but if they were banned every other day rather than every other week, it still proves more effective than the status quo. By itself, the VRS suffers from the same slow response time as the status quo. A single admin cannot be expected to simultaneously improve and police this site with any significant degree of efficiency and accuracy. It is far better to get the community involved in the process. In fact, it's the community through a LOT of hard work (askbob) that is exposing the worst abuse this site has seen. Lets give them the tools they need to work with the admin in making this site what we all would to see it become. In conclusion, I like my opponent's VRS suggestion, but I think it's effectiveness is limited without the PAV. And if we could only choose one, the PAV should be that choice. It transfers the burden placed on a single webmaster to the shoulders of a community dedicated to this site. Therefore, my resolution stands, no matter how you slice it, Debate.org voter data should be publicly available.

Title: A valid picture Identification should be a requirement to vote. Content: Voter ID cards are unfair and ineffective in preventing voter fraud. The main concern with requiring an ID card, other than voter registration card, would be the additional costs incurred just to use the inherent right granted to all Americans to vote. While not posing a strong disincentive preventing voters from paying one-time fee to exercise their future right to vote, the principle of paying to vote is unfair and should not be advocated. As a counter-plan to solve the problems of the 2000 and 2004 elections, the solution should be a federal mandate requiring paper trials for all election precincts. A paper trail would allow voter fraud to be caught most efficiently. More of a concern than having individuals vote under a fake identity is the possibility of having electronic voting booths have their votes switched without being able to prove otherwise.

Title: New Age Electronic Government Content: As an indulgence, please notice the following reiteration: Direct democracy via the Internet is impractical given the modern limitations of technology and of access to technology. Furthermore the amount of legislation and administration involved in our modern society would overwhelm the time constraints required to allow for "every" person to vote on everything. Your original premise is science fiction.

Title: Voting at a lower age would increase participation Content: Earlier voting is not a solution to the low turnout problem, the electoral commission in the UK concluded .here is evidence to suggest that extending the franchise will actually create lower turnout and projections about if it would get higher cannot be sufficiently determined[1] At the moment 18-25 year olds are the least likely to cast a vote at election time. Youth membership of political parties is falling. Lowering the voting age still further is therefore likely to reduce turnout even more. Most people don’t vote because they think the election system is unfair, their vote does not count, or because they don’t trust any of the political parties on offer - lowering the voting age won’t solve these problems. Instead with a generation that is increasingly online, to take the UK 21 million households (80%) had internet access in 2012[2], and there are over 6.4 million iPhone users,[3] the answer is therefore to engage them digitally not through trying some magic bullet at the ballot box. [1] The Electoral Commission, ‘Voting age should stay at 18 says the Electoral Commission’, 19 April 2004 [2] Office for national statistics, ‘Statistical bulletin: Internet Access – Households and Individuals, 2012’, 24 August 2012 [3] NMA Staff, ‘UK iPhone users to reach 6.4m this year’, New media age, 6 August 2010

Title: The Voting System For Debate.org Has Many Avoidable Mistakes Content: Debate.org (DDO) relies on review by other debaters to decide which of the side has won the debate. The DDO community takes the integrity of voting system very seriously. Comments, criticism and suggestions are always welcomed for further improvement of the system. This is not a cliché. In past, the members have suggested many changes to the voting system. These suggestions have been incorporated to improve the system. The resolution for the debate is, The Voting System For Debate.org Has Many Avoidable Mistakes This has been elaborated by my esteemed opponent in R1: … it contains easily avoidable and significant errors that were caused by the conscious decisions on the part of the creator(s) of this website. To win this debate my opponent needs to show DDO voting system contains significant errors. The errors are caused by conscious decision of creator(s) Let us look into the errors pointed by Criticalthinkingmachine and see if any of them fulfill the criteria presented by him. 1. Who did you agree with before/after the debate: This is not irrelevant. It allows voters to specify their own positions. For example I am a strong theist. If there is a debate on religion where atheist has clearly won (because theist debater has not been that good), then it present a dilemma for me. However in DDO voting system, I can vote all points for the deserving side while specifying my own position through first two points. The first two points also provide a useful feedback to the debaters. 2. Who had better conduct / spelling and grammar: Pro feels that these factors should not contribute to debates. However in opinion of most debaters, these factors should also be considered. This encourages good conduct, spelling and grammar. Reading a debate is much more enjoyable when opponents have invested some effort in it. My opponent admits there has to be some way of penalizing poor conduct, spelling or grammar. A point each dedicated for these is the best penalty as well as incentive. 3. Who had better sources: In a formal debate, presenting arguments with proper evidence and sources requires lots of effort. It is essential that some weight is given to it. In debates where sources are not needed; or in debates where both sides have presented good sources, this point can be left as a tie. In cases where one side has made the required effort, it is essential that they should be rewarded. In case, my opponent feels strongly about this issue, he can provide an overall vote based on arguments only. As long as the reason for voting is clearly specified, no one would object to that. 4. Reason for voting: In case a person votes with obviously fake reasons, this community takes the issue very seriously. In the language of DDO, such votes are known as vote-bombs. Once the issue is raised by debaters, warning is issued to the concerned user. Members help in ‘countering’ such votes. In case a dubious voter votes on multiple debates, her account is banned. As a further precaution, new debaters are not allowed to vote until they complete a definite number of debates. There is a related problem of users voting by submitting poorly written RFDs. There is no direct solution for this problem, since it is possible that a particular voter may not be as intelligent as the debaters. It is not feasible to stop someone for voting as a result of ‘lack of intelligence’. However this is not an ‘avoidable error’ due to ‘conscious decisions on the part of the creator(s)’. In fact if my opponent has any suggestions as to how this problem can be avoided, I am sure all of us would like to hear it. 5. Debaters voting on their own debates: This is not allowed. Earlier this was possible, however this facility has been blocked as per suggestions by users of this site. 6. Indefinite voting period: This was allowed earlier. However it is no longer allowed. My opponent has referred to a debate without providing the link. He was apparently referring to this debate [2]. It can be seen that the debate is at least two years old. 7. Won vs. Winning / Lost vs. Losing: This is not a significant issue. Thanks to Criticalthinkingmachine for concern for my health and age. It is well established that middle earth is same as the current earth, which is now passing through the fifth age (or the Age of Lesser Humans). Waiting eagerly for rebuttals by my esteemed opponent. References 1. http://www.debate.org... 2. http://www.debate.org...

Title: Compulsory voting helps protect voter access. Content: In a similar way that the secret ballot is designed to prevent interference with the votes actually cast, compulsory voting prevents interference with access to the vote. Compelling voters to the polls for an election mitigates the impact that external factors may have on an individual's capacity to vote such as the weather, transport, or restrictive employers. It is a measure to prevent disenfranchisement of the socially disadvantaged. Polls are generally held on a Saturday or Sunday as evidenced in nations such as Australia, to ensure that working people can fulfill their duty to cast their vote. Similarly, mobile voting booths may also be taken to old age homes and hospitals to cater for immobilized citizens, and postal voting may be provided for people who are away from their electorate on election day.

Title: Obama's Health Care Plan is beneficial to the United States of America Content: I have never debated this topic or any topic like it, so I hope this goes well. Burden of Proof My opponent must prove that the plan is either detrimental or has no effect. I must prove that it is beneficial. If neither is effectively proven, then the vote is a tie. Definitions Obama's Health Care Plan: . http://www.barackobama.com... To be defined further during this debate. beneficial: conducive to social well-being (. http://www.merriam-webster.com...) Now let us examine the health care plan. Due to space constraints, my examination will be limited. ========== LOWER COSTS ========== "INVEST IN ELECTRONIC HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS. Most medical records are still stored on paper, which makes them difficult to use to coordinate care, measure quality, or reduce medical errors. Processing paper claims also costs twice as much as processing electronic claims. [2]" It goes without saying that reducing costs is important. But perhaps more importantly, electronic storage is much more easy to use. Reducing medical errors is always beneficial, especially when nearly 200,000 Americans each year die due to medical errors [1]. If medical records are converted to electronic media, it could save as much as $77 billion annually [3]. This simple change could save each and every American citizen $250 a year [4]. "(2) IMPROVE ACCESS TO PREVENTION AND PROVEN DISEASE MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS. [. .. ] Over seventy-five percent of total health care dollars are spent on patients with one or more chronic conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. [5]" Obama's plan is to improve care for those with chronic conditions. The plan will "require full transparency regarding quality and costs. " "Both public and private insurers tend to pay providers based on the volume of services provided, rather than the quality or effectiveness of care [6]. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will accelerate efforts to develop and disseminate best practices, and align reimbursement with provision of high quality health care. Providers who see patients enrolled in the new public plan, the National Health Insurance Exchange, Medicare and FEHB will be rewarded for achieving performance thresholds on physician-validated outcome measures. " "[The plan] will prevent companies from abusing their monopoly power through unjustified price increases. In markets where the insurance business is not competitive, their plan will force insurers to pay out a reasonable share of their premiums for patient care instead of keeping exorbitant amounts for profits and administration. " "Prevent drug companies from blocking generic drugs from consumers. " This will increase competition and lower prices. ======================= STRENGTHENING PUBLIC HEALTH ======================= "(1) EMPLOYERS. [. .. ] To address employee health, an increasing number of employers are offering worksite health promotion programs, onsite clinical preventive services such as flu vaccinations, nutritious foods in cafeterias and vending machines, and exercise facilities. Equally important, many employers choose insurance plans that cover preventive services for their employees. Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that worksite interventions hold tremendous potential to influence health and they will expand and reward these efforts. " "(2) SCHOOL SYSTEMS. Childhood obesity is nearly epidemic [7] [. .. ]. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will work with schools to create more healthful environments for children, including assistance with contract policy development for local vendors, grant support for school-based health screening programs and clinical services, increased financial support for physical education, and educational programs for students. " "(4) INDIVIDUALS AND FAMILIES. Preventive care only works if Americans take personal responsibility for their health and make the right decisions in their own lives – if they eat the right foods, stay active, and stop smoking. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will ensure that all Americans are empowered to monitor their health by ensuring coverage of essential clinical services in all federally supported health plans, including Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and the new public plan. " Though not entirely obvious, there are so many ways to go about this. Inspiration is always right around the corner; it's just a matter of finding the right corner. ============ Summary Obama's Health Care Plan will drastically reduce costs and inefficiencies in the medical system, leaving more room for what's truly important: helping people and saving lives. The plan will increase healthfulness in the community from all angles. In conclusion, if Obama's Health Care Plan is not beneficial, then I don't know what is. ======== [1] . http://www.medicalnewstoday.com... [2] Federico Girosi, Robin Meili, and Richard Scoville (2005), Extrapolating Evidence of Health Information Technology Savings and Costs. RAND, page 79. [3] Federico Girosi, Robin Meili, and Richard Scoville (2005), Extrapolating Evidence of Health Information Technology Savings and Costs. RAND, page 36. [4] US Census Bureau [5] Gerard Anderson, Robert Herbert, Timothy Zeffiro, and Nikia JohnsonChronic Conditions: Making the Case for Ongoing Care (2004). Partnership for Solutions (Johns Hopkins and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). [6] . http://www3.brookings.edu... [7] . http://www.nih.gov...

Title: Persuasion is more effective than coercion Content: As noted elsewhere, forced attendance would lead to increased political awareness, and an abstention option would offer a 'none of the above'/'I don't mind or care' choice instead of people spoiling the ballot. Because the number of voters would increase, politicians would have to be active in engaging with the public and therefore become "more deserving of the public's trust". Citizenship classes don't negate the need for compulsory voting but should be used in conjunction to compulsory voting. If people are genuinely not interested in voting or politics, educating them in school would not change that fact. The education is likely to vary from school to school and is only likely to have an impact if the student likes the subject. Compulsory voting would force those parts of the population who are usually disinterested to voice some form of opinion- created a more balanced democracy. Besides, who pays for the education? Taxpayers. Who often don't want to vote. improve this

Title: Direct representation should be adopt for legislatures Content: 1Alyssa, I appreciate You accepting this challenge. On point #1, if the only “more procedures” which would “slow down the entire decision-making progress” of concern are the “careful calculation” of Each Representative’s votes, that data can be easily automated. Currently, in the United States House of Representatives, the institution which I reference as “the existing model”, in order to vote, Each Representative takes Their official congressional identification, places it into a voting station and presses a button indicating “Aye” or “Nay”; the voting station reads from the identification, the identity of the Representative and records the vote electronically; to accommodate direct representation, the information stored on the identification could also include the relative voting weight of the respective Representative and the voting machinery could easily adjust accordingly. Regarding point #2, minority voices will indeed be heard and will be given weight proportionate to that of the Voters; the “limited” power concern raised is actually experienced now under what We might call the “Winner take all” system. Presume, for a moment, Americans all voted along racial lines: Whites only elect Whites, Blacks only elect Blacks, Latinos only elect Latinos. Under direct representation, One would expect ~17% of the votes to go to latino Representatives, ~13% of votes to go to black Representatives, ~5% of votes to go to asian/pacific island Representatives, 1.2% of votes to go to american indian/alaskan native Representatives, and ~63% of votes to go to white Representatives. Meanwhile, under the Winner take all system, We currently see only 6.9% of Representatives are Latinos, 8.1% of Representatives are Blacks, 2.4% of Representatives are Asians/Pacific Islanders, less than 0.5% of Representatives are American Indians/Alaskan Natives, and over 80% of Representatives are Whites. As such, the representation of minority populations can only be enhanced by direct representation. Contrary to the assertion, incentives to compromise will not be lacking: if One is elected to the legislature in a direct representation system, Voters expect One to accomplish certain goals and, if those goals are not met, the One would more readily find Voters transferring Their votes to Someone Else, diminishing One’s influence in the legislature; if compromise is necessary and/or helpful to accomplishing those goals, One will have a good reason to compromise so as to keep Constituents satisfied. As a result, polarization will actually be less likely than now, where One only needs satisfy a majority or sometimes only a plurality of Voters in order to retain the same influence in the legislature. With respect to point #3, the premise seems faulty: in no democratic republic is the “public” expected to compromise; only Legislators are expected to do so and, as I note above, direct representation provides Legislators more incentive to compromise and not less. As We have seen with the United States in the last few years, Representatives can and, to a sizable degree, do represent “a highly adamant force that refuses to compromise” and America has had gridlock as a result. Cf., “showdowns” over the debt ceiling and the recent shutdown of the federal government. Conversely, under direct representation, instead of asserting directly or indirectly a mandate to represent an entire electoral district, Representatives will only have a mandate from the Voters selecting Them as Representative and then only to the extent of the said specific Voters. Additionally, Representatives in this new system will not be able to turn Voters having preferred a different Candidate into “political hostages” because said Voters will have sent different Representatives, though They may have less voting weight, undercutting the ability to remain stubborn in the manner described. For example, if Izzy Idiot currently holds the only seat from Wyoming, Izzy is going to try to assert just as much influence in the congress if 100% of Voters approve or only 50%+1 Voters approve. Meanwhile, in a direct representation system, the state might send 4 Representatives and, if voting weight in the congress is proportionate to the fraction votes received, the republican Representative might have only 65% of the influence Izzy has under the current system, the democratic Representative might have only 20% of the influence Izzy has, the independent Representative might have only 13% of the influence Izzy has, and the “Everybody Else” Representative might have only 2%, resulting in a wider mix of voices and views being considered and the interests and desires of the People more accurately reflected. As noted, Each of the Representatives will have increased incentives to compromise and achieve goals. The assertion “if each representative can get elected by being highly polarized, he/she will compromise” seems contradictory to the rest of the argument made.

Title: Help me earn the right to vote Content: Sure

Title: Polling stations during Elections should be conducted over a longer period than a single day Content: 1. "I often wonder if the single day voting is meant to curb voter fraud. No I don't think so. I think its discrimination against the poor". Response: with all the avenues available on a single day vote (Internet at library, shelters, could provide other government locations) voting would not only be available to all Americans but it could be convenient. 2. "...Those that have to work 2 or 3 jobs to survive and feed their family. Response: currently all states have a form of absentee voting (vote via mail, early, etc...). Here is a link to every state"s absentee voting policy: http://www.ncsl.org.... Additionally, if the single day voting were a national holiday, that modification would eliminate work issues. Either way, every state in the country currently allows citizens to provide their work excuse and vote early. 3. "Suggestion 1 to improve voting: I think that the first time people register to vote (age 18 or above) they should be required to give a fingerprint, than at least there would be a record to identify an individual without having to require a photo ID. I don't see how a fingerprint would be invasion of privacy and it would also be free. You only have to prove who you are once with a birth certificate or other suffiecient form of ID (barring any scaring on your fingers). If this database could be used solely for elections and not accessible to law enforcement (of course could we trust them?) You'd only know a person's finger pad pattern, not what they look like and people would not have to have a photo ID if they didn't want to." Response: with so much difficulty passing voter ID policies, logging fingerprints would prove implausible for two reasons. First, one argument against voter ID is that some have difficulty finding their birth certificate or other forms of ID. Second, many feel it is an invasion of their privacy and denies them their right to vote. Although I support voter ID laws, the fingerprint policy would be a step up in both categories. 4. "Then, you could take your time to vote. Voting at your own convenience. Currently its just a tv spectacle with winners being declared often before even 50% of the vote is in for districts and states. Its not as if the switch from incumbent to the next elected official is happening that next day. Usually its like 3 months till the handover. Pretty much everything must kowtow to the tv networks. Too much money for tv. Sports are slaves to tv as well." Response: if the vote were done over a period of weeks, the spectacle and drama would be dragged out and exacerbated even more than it is now. For example, television shows such as The Bachelorette rely on this type of drama to generate ratings. Presidential elections that only occur once every four years would play right into this type of sensationalism. Additionally, the voting could not occur during the transition period between November and January. During this time, the president-elect needs to conduct business related to a smooth transition between leaders. Therefore, the vote needs to be finalized by early November, it cannot drag on for months. Although the Electoral College process does not officially elect the president until much later, there has never been a President-elect who was not officially elected by the Electoral College. 5. "For those that want national ID cards or required photo IDs YET they want total privacy and no records to match who voted for who, you can't have both." Response: displaying an ID in order to vote but maintaining total privacy on the actual person the voter selected is completely possible. The ID provides the voter the ballot, the voter then votes privately. 6. "Suggestion #2: Better yet, align voting and taxes then if you want to vote you have to pay your taxes (which should already be the case, even if you owe nothing or expect a refund) No taxes, no vote. Citizens benefit from services and infrastructure provided by taxes and it is their duty to pay them, voting should also be a duty of a citizen.(I agree both are duties, but like I argued in Round 1, apathy is the problem)" Response: The IRS is currently backlogged as it is (see link below), so involving them in the voting process would provide an even more significant delay. Additionally, the IRS experiences tax evasion fraud as well as their own surveillance scandals (see link below), so convincing Americans to provide fingerprints would be next to impossible. Lastly, you mentioned single day voting being a burden on the poor. Surely attaching a financial requirement to the vote (albeit a legally assessed tax) could provide a disincentive to conduct both actions (paying taxes and voting) and could also create discrimination similar to post-Civil War poll taxes used to deny African Americans their right to vote. It also could provide the undue burden on the poor that you refer to at the start of your argument. IRS backlog link: http://www.cchgroup.com... IRS scandal link: http://news.investors.com... 7. "EVEN putting the voting date on Saturday is still going to be impossible for some people. There aren't absentee ballots everywhere. Why not go further and make Voting Day a national holiday? Say President's Day? or Veteran's Day? All non-essential businesses are closed and all essential ones required to only have half day. We have holidays for really stupid crap (some just commercial holidays really), but we should celebrate voting. Representation is what we revolted from England for" Response: every state has a policy to allow citizens to vote on a day that is not the national voting day: http://www.ncsl.org.... I think our common ground is, however, to make voting day a national holiday. 8. "Still, having enough time to vote over the period of time of a week, a few weeks, or some agreed upon length of time, would be best and not have any more problems than we already have. At least then there could be no excuse for not voting. As of now many people have an excuse and some a legitimate complaint Also, voter intimidation at a polling station would take a lot more effort if it had to be manned for longer than a single day and hopefully happen less" Response: As I stated in Round 1, the reasons people provide currently are many times just excuses since there are plenty of avenues for citizens to vote under our current system. It would also be easier for people to intimidate voters since the government would have a tough time manning polling locations for weeks or months instead of for just one day. I had fun with my first debate, thanks for posting, this is a great topic.

Title: Primaries in US elections Content: Changing the US primary system will not improve voter turnout

Title: Voting ability Content: I want to vote

Title: Online voting should replace traditional voting. Content: My opponent has failed to provide reasoning as to why hacking, viral infections, and cheating would be impossible in his perfect little system, beyond saying something akin to "nuh-uh". The truth of the matter is is any computer system can be hacked into. All one needs are the time, money, and resources to do it, none of which would be impossible to get [http://articles.latimes.com...], especially with such high stakes. It is likely that converting to an online voting system would bring on a new wave of internet terrorism, and would even make it possible for other countries to decide the course of our nation. Because this one problem WILL exist, and is such a serious threat that it outweighs any good online voting could do because of the amount of damage it could cause to us as a country. Therefore, online voting should not replace traditional voting.

Title: Not Voting in Elections Will Make More of a Difference than Voting Content: As the BoP is shared, I will be arguing that Voting in Elections will make more of a difference than not voting. My contentions are as follows:1) Voting accurately polls a populus2) Voting officially elects government offices3) Voting increases the quality of a nation's overseas representation4) Voting helps the economy5) Voting voices the opinions of AmericansThese will be further expanded during the second round of this debate.

Title: Debate.org should Change their voting system Content: Thanks to my opponent for posting the challenge on this interesting topic. The challenge makes clear that we are only considering two alternatives, either to change to a system in which voters only cast a single vote for the winner of the debate or to keep the present system of awarding up to seven points in categories for each of the two debaters. I suspect that nearly everyone would like to make some improvement or other in the voting system, but what we are now debating is only whether a system of a single point would be an improvement. 1. Vote bombing won't be cured The change advocated by the resolution wouldn't solve the problem of vote bombing. With the voting categories for awarding points and required reasons for decisions, it's usually easy to see who is vote bombing, and we have quite a few DDO members who systematically counter vote bombs. Awarding all seven points is rarely valid, and the lopsided vote is a giveaway. There's a thread for reporting vote bombing, and most new members find it quickly. If voting is reduced to single point win or loss, a vote bomber will have an easier time of concealing a poorly reasoned vote. He can say, “The debate was close, but Con failed to rebut Pro's most important contention … blah, blah.” With unreasonable voting harder to detect, the number of bad decisions is as likely to increase as decrease. 2. Having categories improves the debaters skillsMany people who use the formal debate feature on the debate.org site are trying to improve their skills as debaters. If they just want to give opinions and seek reinforcement they can use the Forums or the Opinions features of the site, or they can just blog or post on facebook. The formal debates are for people who are more serious about structured debating. Reducing the serious-debate component of debate.org diminishes the feature that makes the site distinct from other social networking sites.The elements of a good debate are effective communication, logical presentation, avoiding the distractions of bad behavior, and backing up opinions with good sources. The site article "Tips for a better debate" makes these points explicitly. [1. http://www.debate.org...] The site article "How to Vote" specifically relates these criteria to voting. [2. http://www.debate.org... ]Having points awarded by category encourages the debater to pay attention to each aspect of the debate for fear of losing points in a neglected category. Having categories of judging is typical of competitions in which the judging has a substantial subjective component. Sports like artistic skating [3. http://en.wikipedia.org... ] and gymnastics [4. http://en.wikipedia.org...] have elaborately detailed criteria for judging. The performer is thereby made aware of what he must do to win the competition.3. Having categories improves judging skills A reader can casually evaluate a debate based upon a general impression of who did a better job of making a case. Having judging categories, however, demands a more thorough analysis of exactly why one side did better than the other. There is an adage that a person does not really learn a subject until the person teaches it. Accordingly, critically analyzing debates helps build understanding of good debate practices. If anything, the site should have a more detailed template for judging debates, spelling out the different types of conduct violations, the elements of argument (structure, logic, and rebuttal), what constitutes good sources, and so forth. My point is that to develop debate skills, the direction might be in having a more detailed categories, but it is certainly not in having less. We want the best possible judging by the great majority of members who are not vote bombing. The best judging is a product of the more careful analysis fostered by having point categories. Abbreviating the process in an attempt to foil vote bombers is likely to reduce the quality of analysis by members who want to do their best in fairly evaluating the debate. ---------------- Changing to a single point system will make biased voting easier to conceal, it will obscure the requirements for winning debate, and it will make honest voting less thorough and accurate.

Title: Voting should be compulsory in the UK Content: Compulsory Voting Does not enhance democracy

Title: Increase turnout Content: The youngest age group has always provided the lowest turnout at elections. Reducing the voting age will further reduce the national average turnout for elections. This matters because we don't want to look bad to other contries.

Title: It will reduce the power of special interest groups Content: A benefit of compulsory voting is that it makes it more difficult for special interest groups to vote themselves into power. Under a non-compulsory voting system, if fewer people vote then it is easier for smaller sectional interests and lobby groups to control the outcome of the political process. A notable example would be the disproportionate influence of agriculture in policy making as seen in both European politics and well as American with enormous amounts of subsidies for farmers who represent a minute percentage of the population. 1 2 The outcome of the election therefore reflects less the will of the people (Who do I want to lead the country?) but instead reflects who was logistically more organized and more able to convince people to take time out of their day to cast a vote (Do I even want to vote today?). 1 Ira M. Sheskin and Arnold Dashefsky, "Jewish Population of the United States, 2006," in the American Jewish Year Book 2006, Volume 106, David Singer and Lawrence Grossman, Editors. NY: American Jewish Committee, 2006. 2: Mark Weber, Feb. 2009, 'A Straight Look at the Jewish Lobby', Institute for Historical Review (Accessed 10/06/2011) improve this

Title: Debate.org should reform its voting criteria Content: The voting system here is not designed to ensure objectivity. .. it focuses and awards points for arbitrary things like spelling and grammar. The voting process focus should be mainly on whether or not one persons arguments were better or more convincing than the others. The current way the voting is structured, you could have the better arguments, the better logic and reasoning, but because you have made a grammatical error, you are penalized. This should have no bearing on whether you win or lose a debate or whether your arguments are sound. There are other flaws, that will be covered in rnd 2.

Title: The Voting System on Debate.org Needs VAST Improvement Content: My main problem with the voting system is the lack of accountability concerning votes, not on how the votes are distributed. For instance, I recently finished a debate on a rather controversial topic. I posted my final argument, and the voting time began. Literally less than a minute later, I noticed that someone voted on the debate. The result? Three points given to my opponent, none given to me. I would not particularly have had a problem with that. .. if it were not for the fact that the person voted less than a minute after I posted my final argument. There is absolutely no chance that someone could have noticed that the debate was open for voting, read my final argument, reflected on what was being said, then voted, all in less than a minute's time. Even if she/he happened to be looking at the debate just as I posted my final argument, I still find it incredible. Also, in this debate, my opponent did not use ANY citations whatsoever, all the while "quoting" facts. I backed up my arguments with citations, and when my opponent claimed that my sources were biased and unreliable, I gave other sources (showing the same exact facts, thus proving my original sources WERE reliable, by the way) that no one could logically claim were "unreliable" (Major newspaper articles, government health instituions, etc. ) The first three voters (I checked periodically) gave me absolutely NO POINTS. Once again, if I were simply losing in that debate, that would be one thing. But to give citation points (or at least give a tie) to a person who cited NO SOURCES while making arguments that absolutely had to be backed up by sources? That is preposterous. Also, the voting system is different from what you described it to be (not to count against you; I was under the delusion that the system worked the way you stated as well). My main reason for bringing up this debate is to try to get people to talk about the voting system; whether or not they believe that it needs improvement. Is the voting system fine (minus the lack of accountability)? Yes, I find the point distribution to be adequate. But what good is a voting system for a debate site if it merely reflects people's predetermined thoughts on the given subject? 1) The tab indicating that they are "redesigning" the site has been there for quite a while; as long as I have been on (a few months). Nonetheless, it is something that is not incorporated into the voting system yet, so that would be considered an "improvement". 2) I do not know if anyone tracks the voting on this site. If they do, they need to stop what is called "vote bombing", where a group of people (for various reasons) vote for a specific side en masse, always as a concerted effort. Granted, it would be hard to determine that without question. However, when iLikeRepublicans, nObama08, fashistNeocon69, and reaganBaby! (all fictitious usernames, by the way) are constantly seen voting (around the same time) on political debates (and giving ALL of their points to the more conservative side), well, one can wonder. .. 3) I may or may not be the minority on this point, but I would not consider (nor do I believe that DDO should consider) it an invasion of privacy if someone were able to see my voting record, because: A) No one knows who I really am. B) It is required that the age, city and state (country, for internationals) be shown. I find that a greater invasion of privacy. If privacy is important to DDO, then they should not require that this information be shown. C) If DDO is genuninely trying to accomplish what it says it means to accomplish ("This page is being redesigned to show the voter's picture and username. "), then why not put that information right on the page of each voter? Remember, accountability is key here. 4) I was thinking of having the voting comments put on the voting tab, once it is up and running. No one would be able to start a "comment war" on that tab, as you can only comment when you vote. I initially did contact them about the situation, but never received a response. I just sent another e-mail to them. Hopefully they will respond this time. I await your reply.

Title: Increase Voter Turnout by Holding Money Until Vote Content: I was pondering things we could do to increase voter turnout and I came up with this; every election, we require people to deposit a small sum of money to an election bank about a month before an election they're eligible for; maybe only around $7 dollars, or however much they make per hour. This money has no interest on it or anything like it; once they vote, they can withdraw the money they deposited earlier. If they don't vote, it stays in the account, but they cannot withdraw it. Perhaps the money can be collected from their pay check, income taxes; I'm not sure. It's not a fully formed idea ready for implementation, but hopefully you get the gist of it. I was wondering if anyone had any objections or additions to it. Thanks.

Title: New Age Electronic Government Content: As a millennial, am I the only one noticing we haven't been using modern technology (supercomputers, smartphones, and other devices that connect everyone and everything in it) to our advantage? With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. taking up everyones time I think we have been overlooking the potential political advantage these devices could provide for our generation. As a backdrop for my argument I think I can assume WE all believe congress and government in general is becoming more and more corrupt with every election (based off record low approval ratings). However, We The People still continue to vote into office the same people we are unhappy with. Why? Maybe because we feel hopeless, misinformed, and minute compared to these career politicians that continually propagate corruption. I would like to suggest a futuristic and corruption free government with the help and use of atomic supercomputers. Picture logging onto a website so secure it would take a technical complex larger that google to hack (making voters feel more secure). You have the options of opening a local, state, or federal topic form with issues that relate to your local, state, or federal laws and bills. Here you can get consolidated and factual information from private companies that have no reason to be biased for or against an issue. You then have one vote on the issues related to you which will be viewed by a single president and his cabinet that YOU THE VOTER bring into office. He will log onto this website as well and be able to see directly (without interference from hackers because of the supercomputers) what major issues We The People see that needs to be fixed based on an interactive and integrated map of the responses from the participants. To incentivize this website we would give (lets say 1%) tax cuts to those who participate. This would eliminate the need for congress, which might seem extreme to most, but think about it. Getting rid of the two party, corrupt, old, and deadlocked congress we have right now and opening up this office basically to everyone for a vote on every MAJOR issue would end corruption, gridlock, and the two party system. Also, making the voter feel more hopeful, informed, and important in each issue.

Title: Modern technology makes consultation easier than ever. Content: In the past, it was impractical to organise frequent referendums due to the difficulty and expense of holding them. But with the advent of the internet and mass media, it is now easier than ever to consult the public on issues of concern to them. For example, Switzerland regularly holds referendums on all sorts of issues in an efficient manner which commands widespread public support. [1] [1] Gerlach, Jan; Gasser, Urs. “Three Case Studies from Switzerland: E-Voting”, Internet and Democracy Case Study Series, March 2009. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/files/Gerlach-Gasser_SwissCases_Evoting.pdf

Title: U.S. citizens should be required to take a test before voting. Content: I would argue that paying people to vote would not be a reasonable way to increase voter turnout, the poor do not vote because they want money out of it. It is because they feel as though they aren't represented and do not think its worth the time if there vote does not count. And by implementing a test that slows that process down even more it would simply lead to a larger loss in voter turnout. How much would you offer to vote? The amount offered would have to be a state decision, which would just lead to political corruption. States that are predominately one party would offer almost no payment so that voter turnout doesn't change, while battleground states would offer incentives making them even more important to candidates, which would just corrupt the system even more. I am not suggesting paying voters at all. But to further illustrate the flaw in paying individuals to show up to vote. You have to consider that many of them are at work and cannot lose the 1-4 hours of work. So in order to incentivize them to show up to vote you have to at least meet their requirement for work. So assuming everyone who voted was payed minimum wage, and there were 126 million people who voted in the 2012 election[1]. so with simple math (126 million x 7.25 minimum wage) =913.5 million dollars. And assuming this process worked you would have higher voter turnout meaning that this price would be higher. By offering a billion dollars in incentives to vote, you are basically bribing for votes. The cost of the 2012 presidential election was 6 billion, so we would have a massive increase in the cost of a presidential election.[1] Sources: http://bipartisanpolicy.org...

Title: Increase Voter Turnout by Holding Money Until Vote Content: I accept

Title: Referendums can lend greater validity to political outcomes Content: Major constitutional changes such as the secession of South Sudan may well be appropriate for referendums, but using them to improve the democratic legitimacy of a government is misguided. Many policies touch on issues of human rights and the simple fact that a majority votes in favour of a particular policy will not be enough to convince opponents that the resulting law is fair or just.

Title: Compulsory Voting Content: Compulsory voting is a system in which voters are obligated to vote on election day. If the voter chooses not to vote they may be subject to small punitive measures, much like a speeding ticket. This system is used by 22 countries around the world and has various pros and cons. Voter turnout in the United States is currently at a alarming low rate. The last general election in 2014 has a turnout of 36.4% of eligible voters. In a time where technology is able to connect so many people, 64.6% of the US population wasn't represented in the 2014 general election. I argue that increasing voter turnout in the United States through compulsory voting would increase productivity of the government, and in term benefit many other areas of life.

Title: Increase turnout Content: A further argument in favour of reducing the voting age is that reducing the voting age will increase turnout. This is because people are more likely to maintain the habit of voting throughout their lives if they start at a younger age. At present, a child will usually leave school at 16. They are leaving an environment where political issues can be discussed and debated, increasing their interest in politics. Once they have left school, they may have to wait up to 8 years before they have their first opportunity to vote at a general election. By this time, they have lost interest and are less likely to vote.

Title: The Voting System on Debate.org Needs VAST Improvement Content: Okay, this is my first debate on debate.org, so let's see how this goes. This is a very interesting topic, but something that I have never encountered before personally. If the people in the comments section want to give their opinions on this debate, they can. This topic seems like something that multiple people should give their input on. So, the resolved is that the voting system is flawed, and I am negating that resolution. My contentions: 1) It's very simple to understand: When you vote for con or pro, he or she gets a point. (For the specifics of the point system, http://www.debate.org...) The person with the most points out of the 6 voting topics gets a bonus point. Why risk making it more complicated by changing it? 2) It goes over a wide range of topics, which gives fairness to both pro and con. You can vote on grammar and and conduct and what not, so if pro were to only get one point and con would get the five remaining points, pro would still get one point and maybe have a chance to come back. One point could make a difference, after all. 3) It can give you an estimate of how much you need to improve. For example, if I were to lose this debate 52 to 5, obviously I need some work. But if the score were much closer, so something like 52 to 48, then I could infer that either my opponent's case was slightly stronger than mine, or the voters voted for my opponent on the first and second voting topics (Who did you agree with before/after the debate?), giving my opponent an edge. I'm going to comment on your suggestions, if you don't mind. Since the resolved is that the voting system is flawed, and not to see whether his specific ideas are "the best," I hope the voters won't penalize me for saying whether I agree with a suggestion or not. 1) If you look at the section below the voting part and the names + pictures in the debate, there are three tabs that say Debate Rounds, Comments, and Voting. They're redesigning the Voting section to describe exactly what #1 says. ("This page is being redesigned to show the voter's picture and username.") 2) Define "more closely." 3) That wouldn't be a bad idea, but getting too specific about a feed on someone's profile might make people think that it's an invasion of privacy. 4) I like the idea of putting a paragraph, but I feel like letting other members being able to comment/report on a paragraph would start a "comment fight," which would be annoying. Is there a way to contact a support group about that problem? Honestly, I like your ideas on how the voting system could be improved, but if you were to elaborate on them and get some opinions from other debaters like I just did, you could have some legitimate improvements.

Title: Modernisation Content: In modern, developed countries, many people spend both work and leisure time on the internet or using electronic devices[1][2][3][4]. Our traditional voting systems, with polling stations and paper slips, is out of line with how many of the population now live their lives. When we see an overwhelming number of people – especially young people[5] – voting for reality television programmes such as The X Factor[6], it demonstrates a valuable method of engagement which the political system is missing out on. This had led to sources such as the BBC darkly questioning ‘Is Big Brother really more popular than election?’[7], indicating that while the overall number of votes in the 2005 general election in the UK outweighed those cast for Big Brother and Fame Academy, the proportion of votes by young voters (18-34) could be understood to show more engagement with these television shows than with the general election[8]. In any case, it is clear that we should bring our voting systems up to date in order to engage young people and the wider population. [1] In the UK: http://www.tnsglobal.com/news/news-6A7B1D614B284E20B26AA3A75601275B.aspx, accessed 24/08/11 [2] In Europe: http://www.netimperative.com/news/2010/march/europeans-2018spend-more-time-on-mobile-web-than, accessed 24/08/11 [3] In Asia: http://thenextweb.com/asia/2011/06/13/chinese-now-spend-41-of-their-time-online-on-social-networks-in-lieu-of-news-sites/, accessed 24/08/11 [4] In the USA: http://www.comscoredatamine.com/2011/01/average-time-spent-online-per-u-s-visitor-in-2010/, accessed 24/08/11 [5] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4586995.stm, accessed 24/08/11 [6] http://xfactor.tellymix.co.uk/news/23245-revealed-the-x-factor-2010-voting-percentages-and-detailed-results.html, accessed 24/08/11 [7] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4586995.stm, accessed 24/08/11 [8] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4586995.stm, accessed 24/08/11

Title: Improves standards in political governance. Content: The trend in developed countries tends to be towards greater centralisation, and concentration of power in the hands of a small number of representatives. This, in turn, leads to the creation of a separate political class who will in some cases be more concerned with their own influence and enrichment than that of the voters, and makes it possible for wealthy individuals or companies to lobby politicians for laws favourable to their interests. Increased use of referendums would potentially reduce the influence of lobby groups and corporate donors on the political system.[1] [1] Knutsen, John. “Blueprint for a new European Confederation”, Basiclaw.net, January 2004. http://www.basiclaw.net/Principles/Direct%20democracy.htm

Title: In a democracy, voting ought to be compulsory. Content: Thanks you for accepting the challenge! I would like to begin by presenting evidence supporting my views previously stated in R1. 1. Compulsory Voting Decreases Political Polarization and Solves for Disenfranchisement of Voters According to Eric Liu, (Former Policy Adviser to President Bill Clinton), TIME, Aug. 21, 2012. Retrieved Aug. 16, 2013 from http://ideas.time.com.... Many reforms could increase turnout, from same-day registration to voting on weekends. But the most basic is also the most appropriate: making voting mandatory. Here"s why. Mandatory voting would make elections truly valid. "Protecting the integrity of our elections" is the rationale Republicans give for the cynically restrictive voter ID laws they"ve enacted in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. But if we truly cared about the integrity of elections, we should ensure that they reflect the will of all eligible voters. Second, as William Galston of the Brookings Institution argues, it would temper the polarization of our politics. In today"s electorate, hardcore partisan believers are over-represented; independents and moderates are under-represented. If the full range of voters actually voted, our political leaders, who are exquisitely attuned followers, would go where the votes are: away from the extremes. And they would become more responsive to the younger, poorer and less educated Americans who don"t currently vote. What we see is in a voluntary system the views of the partisan people are heard but the moderate middle go unheard. Through compulsory voting we would see moderate voters receive legitimate representation. 2. CV Increases Political Participation Margaret Kelly, (Prof., Law, Macquerie U., Australia), THE ADVERTISER, Oct. 22, 2007, 18. The turnout at Australian elections has never fallen below 90 per cent since the introduction of compulsory voting. This compares favorably to the situation in the U.S. and Britain. In 2001, the turnout for the federal election for the House of Representatives was 94.85 per cent. In the same year, the turnout for the general election in Britain was 59.4 per cent. With such a large percentage of the electorate voting, the Parliament more accurately reflects the will of the electorate, the silent majority, not just the noisy minority. Parties must consider the total electorate in policy formulation not just those inclined to go to the polls. Not only does it increase political participation, but it also increases the political process as a whole. Politicians will have to appeal to a new range of voters rather than campaigns just go get there base out to vote. ------------------------------------- A few points I would like to address before my opponent presents his evidence supporting his position. 1. All CV does is force you to fill out a ballot (none is an option). CV does not force you to chose the lesser of two evils since you can always vote for none of the below (or above). 2. The Quality of Elections will increase because politicians will now have to represent the whole voter base rather than the few hardcore partisan voters that come out and vote. 3. All laws require citizens to do things they don't want to do. Jury duty is a good example of this, taxes, and much more. CV is no different than our other day to day civic duties. Forcing someone to vote is not undemocratic.

Title: is school truly needed Content: Vote for me everybody

Title: Compulsory Voting Content: Thanks for admitting that CV could be damaging. Low voter turnout should be addressed but not through compulsory voting because not voting is a valid political choice; and exercise of freedom of choice, movement, and association. Also, compulsory voting will create false democracy. Pro cannot just add conditions now, he should have stated his conditions like ‘educating voters,’ in round 1. This is a basic rule in debate. But granted it counts, still his so-called ‘educating voters’ is very vague and not in harmony with compulsory voting. We can increase voter’s turnout by informing and educating people about election, without necessarily forcing people to go to the polling stations because it violates their fundamental freedoms.

Title: The referendum is good PR for the UK. Content: A referendum, regardless of the result, will prove an effective public relations boost for the United Kingdom. UK citizens will feel more confident in their government, as some currently see EU membership as an illegitimate breach of the social contract and others argue that the UK is not doing enough to co-operate. Europeans also will improve their view of the United Kingdom: a "Yes" vote will minimize the perception of the UK as a foot-dragging, reluctant participant in Europe; a "No" vote will be seen to end a half-hearted charade. Either way, a more straightforward relationship with Europe will minimize UK-Europe mistrust, which will benefit each politically and economically. improve this

Title: There are alternatives that tackle the real causes of voter disengagement Content: Compulsory voting hides the problem which is causing people to be disengaged from politics; it allows politicians to ignore measures that can tackle the true causes of political disengagement. States instead should seek on strategies that will eliminate barriers to voting along with reducing the costs of turnout for its citizens, weekend voting, making election days a holiday, simple registration procedures, reforms such as to the party finance rules to widen the playing field, and the creation of a centralized, professional bureaucracy concerned with all aspects of election administration. In the UK, for example, adopting a more proportional system will allow for a political spectrum rather than the three major parties that currently dominate. improve this

Title: Super pacs harm the election process. Content: In order to be fair i will refrain from posting a rebutall this round. Before I start I would like to offer one sole observation: 1) As noted by political watchdog the electoral knowledge the three pillars of any electoral process are voter participation, informed citizens and transparency. Contention 1: The Citizens united ruling increase voter turnout. According to "the Center for Responsive Politics, in the 2012 presidential race over $380,000,000 have been raised by super PACs and $330,000,000 have been spent".This money according to the wall street journal is so super PACs can run advertisements for or against political candidates.. This is important because these advertisements are essential for maintaining voter turnout according to Paul freedman of the University of Virginia "respondents were as much as 10 percentages Points more likely to vote if they watched television in media Markets that were bombarded with presidential ads". Furthermore, according to Dr. Hillygus of Duke University "Among those who early in the campaign did not intend to vote, exposure to ads increased intentions to vote by 18 percentage points". The impact of this is that by increasing voter turnout we get a more accurate representation of the publics will which is the purpose of the election process. Contention 2: citizens united allows voters to make informed decisions According to political scientist David Downing "without freedom of media and wider freedom of speech people cannot make informed decisions on how they should vote". This is important because according to Hans von Spakovsky, former member of the Federal Election Commission "many associations we have in this country (no matter which side of the political aisle they are on), from the NAACP to the Sierra Club to the National Rifle Association, are also corporations. Yet those corporate associations were prohibited under penalty of criminal and civil sanctions from expressing the views of their members. This means that before this landmark decisions many important organizations where barred from expressing their opinions and thus the public lacked vital information that may have significantly affected the outcome of previous elections. Lastly this increase in corporate spending does not favor either political party since according to matt bia a correspondent for the new York times campaign spending tends to be cyclical since when one party increases its spending the other party tends to mobilize and increase its spending. Thus not only does citizen united create more informed voters but it also prevents any one party from gaining an advantage. Contention 3: Citizens united increases transparency According to the center for political accountability 85% of company"s increased their disclosure over the last election cycle and there has been an 11% overall increase in disclosure rates. David Weigel a correspondent for the Washington post supports this consensus and notes "there's more information out there about super PAC donors than there is about virtually any other kind of campaign fundraising. The impact of this increased transparency is twofold: sub point a) Transparency reduces political corruption, as noted by political watchdog the electoral knowledge "Transparency makes institutional systems and the actions/decisions they take widely accessible and understood [and] It is difficult to maintain or publicly justify a system that permits abuse and corruption". This corruption is devastating to the democratic process as noted social advocate John Samuel states "The subversion, misuse and abuse of power tends to undermine the process and content of the democratic process" sub point b) Transparency allows voters to maintain confidence in our democratic system according to John Wonderlich of the sunlight foundation "Public knowledge of the money flowing into our politics is absolutely fundamental to public accountability in campaigns and elections, [because] without it we can"t properly" maintain confidence in our democratic system". Voter confidence is essential because as Lonna Atkeson of the University of New Mexico notes "If voters do not have faith in this most fundamental aspect of a democratic society " then the legitimacy of representative government might be at risk" and If we can"t even trust are representatives then we have completely undermined the entire purpose of the election process. Thus for all the aforementioned reasons I urge a con ballot. Sources: http://blog.heritage.org... http://www.slate.com... https://docs.google.com... http://www.nytimes.com... http://www.bowdoin.edu... http://jurist.org... http://aceproject.org... http://news.yahoo.com... http://infochangeindia.org... http://sunlightfoundation.com... http://aceproject.org... http://aceproject.org...

Title: The Internet is more useful than frustrating Content: I will first refute sewook123's arguments. 1.There are many sites on the Internet which provide true information. Many universities offer great resources for students who are researching. Based on my personal experiences, I found that universities give very detailed information about a specific subject. Universities also give valuable statistics that can be used to prove information. 2.In fact, many, if not all, complicated functions are designed for professionals. The Internet is not like a computer, or a program such as Microsoft Excel. Microsoft Excel is way more complicated than the Internet. 3. I did not meant voting; I meant online voting. In case you did not know, online voting is the act of going on the Internet and vote. There are many trustworthy services such as Elections BC that offer online voting. Online voting is extremely helpful because many people want to vote, but do not have cars or proper transit. To prove that online voting is useful, I will take the Malaysia Airlines' online voting debate. Why did they not simply "vote", which means, according to Merriam Webster, "the official choice that you make in an election, meeting, etc., by casting a ballot, raising your hand, speaking your choice aloud, etc." 4. I agree that one cannot buy groceries online. However, many people shop online to buy objects regardless of the costs. For example, Amazon, an online company, is very rich now by just making a website and let people shop online. According to Invesp, more than 80% of the online population has shopped online, and more than 50% of the online population has shopped online more than once. The reason: less taxes, save time, save fuel, less crowds, ease of comparing prices, etc. The link right here:http://www.cpcstrategy.com... 5. Dangers is kind of off topic; but I will refute it anyways. The Government of US has already tested the new technology against hackers. In addition, the new, evolving technology will prevent hackers from accessing confidential files. For my arguments: Con has stated that he spends numerous hours on the Internet for many uses. Therefore, that means the Internet is very useful.

Title: Should all schools have a electronic tool(laptop,tablet,etc) Content: I think schools should have electronic tools because it can really help them.They can do homework easier.In my school I am in right now has laptops.My math teacher gave us our own account for Reflex Math.It is a website that can help you increase your facts like multiplication.It has helped ever since I got into middle school.I have noticed that I increased in knowing my multiplication and division facts.

Title: Mandatory Voting Content: I have read your previous debates and am delighted to be debating someone who is well articulated and experienced. Arguments- 1. Voting is a moral and civic duty2. Mandatory voting will increase representation3. Mandatory voting will reduce polarization4. Mandatory voting will increase voter participation and knowledge When we vote, we make a conscious decision that will effect the entire nation. Often times, our choices will have consequences, whether good or bad, that could last for generations. In his book, The Ethics of Voting, Princeton philosopher Jason Brennan writes: "Voting is morally significant. Voting changes the quality, scope, and kind of government. The way we vote can help or harm people. Electoral outcomes can be harmful or beneficial, just or unjust. They can exploit the minority for the benefit of the majority. They can do widespread harm with little benefit for anyone. " [1] Brennan further writes: "Voting is the principal way that citizens influence the quality of government. No activity is more emblematic of democracy. Some call voting a civic sacrament. Many people approach democracy, and voting especially, with a quasi-religious reverence. " [2] In his debate, debate. org use whiteflame writes: "[Democracy is] the basis for how our country continues to function, and an essential component in determining who represents the country. As such, voting is necessary to keep the country functioning for the benefit of the people. It's beneficial for all eligible voters to understand that necessity, and to be aware that their duty as citizens is to be involved in the composition of their government, and thus to be involved in the laws it passes. This is the same reason why jury duty is compulsory, as it ensures that the courts can function properly. " [3] So in conclusion, we get this: P1: In democratic countries, voting is the primary way in which the government functions. P2: It is therefore our moral and civic duty to ensure that the government runs properly. C: Therefore, the government ought to make voting mandatory. Among the mantras of democracy is the concept of the consent of the governed. One of the many problems in the United States is the anemic voter turnout. This, in turn, creates a situation in which the vast majority of eligible voters do not consent to the current form of government, nor the leaders in charge. For example, in the State of Maine, the gubernatorial election in 2014 had three candidates. Paul LePage, the highly unpopular governor, won re-election with only 48 percent of the vote. (4) This means that for those who actually voted, 51 per cent did not consent to him being the next governor. How would mandatory voting increase representation? Whiteflame further notes (3): "Part of the reason that voting is so important is because it ensures that your views play a role in how your part of the country, and the country as a whole, are represented. Representation is enhanced by having a larger voting bloc, but that's a basic hazard of democracy in any case. What changes in a voluntary voting system? Those sectors of the public that turn out to vote. Who turns out to vote? Those with higher incomes. Voter apathy is inversely correlated with wealth, as those with more wealth tend to vote more often. This means that these groups receive less representation, as the leadership of our political parties has little reason to see to their needs over those of the rich. Compulsory voting ameliorates this problem, making voting blocs the size of their populations, and, perhaps, even reducing the gridlock that we currently see between political parties. This is what we've seen in studies conducted in Australia, a country that employs compulsory voting. In the end, this ensures that special interest groups and extremist subsets of the population have less control, and over the way U. S. policy is conducted, and have to convince broader subsets of the population that their intentions are for a larger overall benefit than simply for themselves. " Thus to conclude: P1: Democracy is based on the consent of the peopleP2: Citizens show consent by voting. P3: Mandatory voting increases representation and consent of the people. C1: Therefore, a democracy without high electoral turnout rules without consent. C2: Therefore, voting ought to be mandatory. Among the issues with voter turnout is the high polarization in the United States. Justin Valasek in his research for Duke University noted: "When turnout is strategic and citizens have decreasing intensity of political preferences, I show that an incentive to maximize turnout among the base can cause candidates to take partisan positions, in contrast to the median voter result under full turnout. I then study how the results of this model change with the introduction of measures to increase turnout. In contrast to previous literature on turnout and mandatory voting, which takes candidate positions as fixed, I analyze the effect on both who wins the election and the candidates’ political positions. R32;R32;I show that at high enough levels, measures to increase turnout result in convergence at the median citizen’s ideal point. As voting is made cheaper, or strictly beneficial (through subsidies), the strategic effect of turnout on candidates disappears, returning the median voter result. " So, if we made voting mandatory, the results will be that the candidates will largely take political positions that represent a broader aspect of the said population, thus creating a more centrist government as Eric Liu writes (6): "In today’s electorate, hardcore partisan believers are over-represented; independents and moderates are under-represented. If the full range of voters actually voted, our political leaders, who are exquisitely attuned followers, would go where the votes are: away from the extremes. And they would become more responsive to the younger, poorer and less educated Americans who don’t currently vote. " One of the main arguments used by those who do not support mandatory voting is the issue of low-informed voters; however, by making voting mandatory, we will prompt more voters to pay attention to politics. Eric Liu further notes (6): "Third, mandatory voting would prompt more Americans to pay attention to the choices. Those of us who lament the decline of civic knowledge generally focus on the supply side of the equation: more civics education. A mandate would stimulate the demand side, motivating more voters to learn what they were voting on (just as a draft makes the drafted motivated to learn what they’d fight for). There are many arguments against mandatory voting; each reflects a lack of faith in democracy itself. One says that increasing the number of uninformed voters will lead to worse policymaking. That presumes, however, that policymaking today sets a high-water mark of enlightenment. It also sets up a viciously antidemocratic circle: if you don’t vote you must be stupid and if you are stupid you must not vote. " | Conclusion | In democratic society mandatory voting is necessary for the government to be able to properly function. Voting will also help to reduce polarization, and increase knowledge and awareness of the government. I affirm the resolution. Over to con! _______ Sources 1. Brennan, Jason. The Ethics of Voting. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2011. Print.2. Ibid3. Used with permission of whiteflame. . http://www.edeb8.com...;4. . https://en.wikipedia.org...;5. . http://econ.duke.edu...;6. . http://ideas.time.com...;

Title: Resolved: The Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Should Not be Extended Content: I will defend my case and attack my opponents. My opponent argues that creating more jobs will decrease the deficit. With every job created, the economy is only being increased around $1.50 in worth. The cost of extending the tax cuts overpowers the benefit. The only way we can help improve our economy is through Socialist principles. During The Great Depression, government officials agreed that the only way to improve an economy is to increase the money flow. Voting Con will add over 500 million to the 1 trillion dollar deficit we already have. This actually will cause our country to endow into a W shaped recovery. We got what we needed in the short run from these tax cuts, so let them be ended. We have no domestic consumption to promote because our government has no money to just give away anymore. Precedents and failure have shown that just handing out stimulus checks to for short-term use does not work as well as it does on the chalkboard. Also voting Con will make the United States have a downward spiral know as the "slippery slope". The slope will be a continuing procrastination for ending the tax cut. Republicans will always argue for two more years. Without government intervention, more kids will go homeless from the lack of resources they do not possess. But taxing those who make well over what is necessary to run a more than sufficient household to create stimulus for below poverty citizens isn't fair? Not increasing the taxes now will only lead to more procrastination when the next tax cuts expire. When we look into the reality of it, nobody wants to be taxed more than they already are, but it is necessary for the future of our country's economy. Regarding my opponents Contention 1 and 2: Adding 3.1 million jobs is not going to effect the economy as much as the 954 billion dollar expenditures that along with it. Without the tax money, our government has only the option to keep borrowing the money adding to the debt. Extending the tax cuts so far have only made jobs scarce and unemployment high. Republicans would rather have low taxes, than the growth of an economy. Extending tax cuts is in fact the immoral decision. It shows how selfish people really are. When looking at it from a moral standpoint, extending tax cuts for struggling middle and lower class families is rational because these families need the money. Upper class citizens do not need that income as much as others do. Allowing the government to just increase taxes on the rich whenever they need extra money"- This is not true. Remember that we are debating a tax CUT. These are not the normal taxes that should be in place now. The taxes were cut because the majority of citizens, whether wealthy or the less fortunate, were facing hard times. Now as we are slowing moving up, middle and lower class people are still suffering. Extending the taxes is only going to leave the rich richer and the poor even poorer until not only the unemployment rate is high, but so are the homeless rates as well.

Title: Voting Should Be Compulsory Content: Although I understand that point of view by " The Freedom Of Expression" I believe that, in this case, there should be an exception. "The character of every act depends upon the circumstance in which it is done." 1.Compulsory voting increases the number of people who cast their vote People who know they will have to vote will take politics more seriously and start to take a more active role. Compulsory voting will potentially encourage voters to research the candidates' political positions more thoroughly. This may force candidates to be more open and transparent about their positions on many complex and controversial issues. This means that such a system could produce better political decisions that are not contradicting each other, quite upon the contrary. 2. Making voting an obligation would increase the amount of voter in a significant manner, broadening the representation of smaller/disadvantaged groups. Democracy is usually overruled and misrepresented by the larger parties, making it an unfair judgement. If everyone voted it would mean that there would be more truthful opinions based on the party leaders attitude. More people voting means more fair democracy. 3.People don"t vote for reasons that are somewhat related to apathy such as; they think their vote won"t count, apathy, lines are too long or cannot get to polling area. We Are In The 21st Century. 3.1 Apathy is a lack of interest, concern or enthusiasm. http://survation.com... This survey shows that a great number of people with apathy towards democracy feel more or less the same about it as non-voters. The only reason behind they don"t vote is really just the reason behind their apathy, so lets see that. 3.2 Reasons for Voter Apathy http://www.zencollegelife.com... This article explains EXACTLY what I am trying to explain to you. We Are In The 21st Century. There is no REAL reason for people NOT to vote. Simply not wanting to is not right, unacceptable. They do not know how important their vote is to any government candidate. Compulsory voting would make voters/people incline to know more about Democracy, increasing their interest in it and helping them realize how important their vote is to the government and all political party.~ Votes make a difference, America wants a difference. More Votes, more differences.

Title: PR increases political engagement which benefits society. Content: PR results in more engagement in politics as every vote counts (CPA/Wilton Park conference, ‘How can Parliamentarians best re-engage the public?’). Political participation is good and we should care about the low voter turnout in elections that has been caused by first past the post. Surveys show that that those who vote are more engaged in the community in other ways and have better personal wellbeing. Research in Switzerland has shown that voting does make people happier as well as being better informed citizens. The higher the stake the person has, and the more likely their vote is to count the more effort they will make to find out the facts so as to make informed choices.(Marks et al., 2005, p5-6)

Title: make voting compulsory Content: It will cause more people to become interested in politics

Title: Increase Voter Turnout by Holding Money Until Vote Content: ij