Coliseum Idea: US Electoral College

[Tribble]

(Continuation from US Election Thread)

It's been a long time since there has been a Coliseum match, so I'd like to start one. My proposal is as follows:

There will be four debaters for this match:

Debater A argues for the Electoral College as originally intended (i.e. public chooses the electors while the electors choose the president independently.)
Debater B argues the "winner take all" approach (i.e. the present system in most states, where all the electors in a state go to the candidate with the most votes)
Debater C argues for making the Electoral College proportionate statewide (The Electorate College is left intact, but the electors are based on the proportions of each individual state)
Debater D argues for making the election directly proportional to the number of votes nationwide (the mechanism does not matter so much, it can either be all the electors pledging themselves to the proportional vote or abolishing the Electoral College outright).

For the purposes of the debate:

1) The position and powers of the presidency itself remain the same (no complete overhauls like switching over to a parliamentary system)
2) Practical considerations as to the adoption of the debater's system aren't important (e.g. the "winner take all" debater should not argue that the Electoral College cannot be reformed due to the politics involved so therefore the current methods are best). The debate is a focus on the merits and drawbacks of each method.

General rules of Coliseum battles are followed:

1) Any sources used must be cited, preferably with a url where the material can be found.
2) Any points unanswered by the immediately following rebuttal post will be considered conceded for the purposes of the debate. Calls for evidence, etc. are considered contending the point, belittling statements are not. At mutual consent of the debaters, this may be waived.
3) One post per rebuttal. If a debater can't fit it all into one post, only then may the debater extend it into two.
4) No editing of posts for non-grammatical reason after they have been made, except with mutual consent of all debaters.
5) An understanding that all are engaging in a debate, and thus their views are solely those being expressed in the debate and not, necessarily, those they hold in real life.


I will happily pick one of the positions as needed. Though I admit that I'm not particularly good, I want to have some fun getting shredded. What can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment!

Also, I'm not entirely sure how the turn order should work for a 4-person debate, and could use some advice.

Anyone interested? (apart from Flagg of course)? If so, what role would you like to play? (I'll be whichever one is left over, if any).

Would this be acceptable, Moderators? (if not perhaps it can be an "unofficial" fight on this thread?)

Any other suggestions?

[Tribble]

If that is a bit too much, I will happily the debate the US electoral College vs Nationwide voting, I just figured there were enough differences between these methods to treat them separately. Plus I thought a 4-way battle might be fun

[The Romulan Republic]

I definitely like this idea, although I'd prefer not to participate as a debater. Their are others who will be better able to do justice to the topic, if they wish.

I do wonder if having four sides could get a bit cumbersome, but then they are all valid positions to take on this subject.

[Gandalf]

Boiling it down to two sides might make it easier to deal with some of the more interesting and philosophical abstractions, and that way if someone gets blindsided by an opponent's arguments there aren't concerns of timing or whatever.

[Tribble]

Hmmmmm, having 4 debaters at once could be a problem...

Would a round-robin work, where each debater faces off against another debater in turn? You could have a set amount of time for each round. This would probably require separate threads and likely wouldn't fall under "official" Coliseum territory, but it should be easy enough to keep track of via thread title "eg Round One of Electoral College Debate, Winner Take all vs State Wide Popular Vote". After all the debates, a victor is chosen.

Or it could be a two-round tournament, where one debater is randomly selected to face another, then the winners of the first round go on to the final.

[K. A. Pital]

We need one for and one against, with the best possible arguments. Preferrably both US history experts - at least on a forum level, although any well-versed poster should do.

Where's Steve?

[Highlord Laan]

And here I was hoping this was an idea involving the improvement of the Electoral College though the use of hungry lions. Damn you for getting my hopes up.

[Flagg]

And here I was hoping this was an idea involving the improvement of the Electoral College though the use of hungry lions. Damn you for getting my hopes up.

Are they Archinists lion batteries? God damn and fuck half the Angels I start giggling like a stoned 14 year old girl smoking dirt weed every time I think of that. It's the little things.

[Tribble]

And here I was hoping this was an idea involving the improvement of the Electoral College though the use of hungry lions. Damn you for getting my hopes up.

Three ideas to potentially improve it are already there - go back to making the president indirectly elected via independent electors, make the electoral college proportionate statewide, or make it proportionate nationwide and/or abolish it altogether and have a nationwide popular vote (the ladder two are obviously very similar, though making the electoral college proportionate nationwide would be easier than abolishing it, and potentially does not need a constitutional amendment).

Are they Archinists lion batteries? God damn and fuck half the Angels I start giggling like a stoned 14 year old girl smoking dirt weed every time I think of that. It's the little things.

Yes that's exactly what I was going to suggest!

And here I thought you weren't even going to bother to read the thread!

We need one for and one against, with the best possible arguments. Preferably both US history experts - at least on a forum level, although any well-versed poster should do.

Where's Steve?

For or against what is the problem with a 2 person debate. As I stated above, the Electoral College has morphed quite significantly compared to what it was originally intended for, and can still be changed significantly without abolishment.

Is it "Maintain the Status Quo" vs "Reform Electoral College"?

That seems to be the most popular... how specific would we be getting?

Would the "Reform" Debater have to pick a specific way to change the Electoral College, or would s/he merely have to prove that the status quo should be changed? Could the Reformer argue for any number of changes (such as the ones listed above) and the status quo must argue against all of them?

Should the "Reform" win, how would we determine which particular alternative would be best?

[Gerald Tarrant]

There are two different types of High school and college debate which might serve as good templates for what you want to do.

The first is Lincoln Douglas, this structure starts with a resolution examples I recall from back in the day are "Resolved: Civil Disobedience in a democracray is justified", another one "adolescents right to privacy ought to outweigh a parent's right to know ...." with a little more definition on what a parents rights are. These are paraphrases, but they can give an example of the sorts of conflicts that show up in Lincoln douglas. The affirmative tends to argue in this fashion, using the civil disobedience as an example :"My value is justice" Some benefit or other that you get from affirming the resolution. "my criterion is Rawls veil of ignorance" some method of determining what is a superior value to another, for instance the Rawls one has you imagine that you have no identity (no race, class, gender etc) and then ask yourself would you want to be a in a world with no civil disobedience. And the affirmative would argue no, because what if you are in a disadvantaged class, you would want every arrow in your quiver to bring attention to your concerns. Then the affirmative argues why their position "achieves" their value.

The negative presents a competing view, example "value stability, criterion Maslowes hierarchy of needs" this criterion is a pyramid of human needs. It starts at food shelter, and other basics, then starts to include more enriching things. As a the negative someone might use thois to argue that those bottom pyramid tiers outweigh the upper ones until you have enough of the bottom tiers. Then the negative would present supporting info for their value, and then attack the affirmative position. The structure of LD is an affirmative constructive; arguments for the position. , a negative constructive: arguments for their position, followed by arguments against the case the affirmative built, followed by cross examining rounds and several rounds of rebuttals. This structure is nice because it permits talking about things in generalities, and the round setup means you only present no arguments during the constructive, everywhere else you are only interested in rebutting opponents claims.

The other formalized debate structure I'm familiar with is policy, this one got very silly, same idea Resolved "blah" but in policy the debaters present a plan which meets the resolution, EXAMPLE" Resolved the United States should promote renewable energy " An affirmative case would be a renewable energy plan, like Solar power satellites, by proving that it's a good plan you show the resolution is sound. The negative would begin to argue against this, maybe with a "topicality question" , satellites don't meet the normal definition of renewable energy . They might also argue against cost issues, or that specific evidence In favor of a position is bunk. One of the silly things about this is some of the topical questions became very weird, for instance an argument I ran once was that the United States actually referred to the "United States of Mexico" and so the American Solar power plan failed to meet the intentions of the writers of the resolution. Once again, affirmative constructive, cross examination, negative constructive, but then the affirmative is allowed a second constructive to present other ideas, same for negative, then rebuttals galore.

Edit: spelling and phone typo's (I have fat fingers)

[Tribble]

So it would be along the lines of:

Resolved: The President of the USA should be directly elected

or something like that?

[Gerald Tarrant]

I would expect so, and I'd personally advocate a more Lincoln Douglas approach, I wouldn't want to see an argument about minutia (which happens in the other style). L-D always seemed to fit well where there were broad sorts of values clashing. I would be a little cautious about whether the resolution is for the status quo or changing it though. It was a mostly accepted fact that the negative side had a slightly easier time rhetorically, because the affirmative is making an affirmative claim; so the negative could win either: 1) by knocking holes in the affirmative case, or 2) showing that negating the resolution lead to a situation that was better than or equal to affirming the resolution, broadly that was showing "the negative side's value was better than or equal to the affirmative's". Maybe that was just an artifact of when I was in High School I was a sloppy debater, but that's some thing you might want to consider if you choose an LD model.

Personally I think that resolution is a good one, and probably symmetric enough, if you switch it to Resolved: "The president should continue to be elected by Electoral College" I think it would be pretty much the same chances. And for the debate structure purposes all you really care about is how many constructive arguments you permit, and how many rebuttals, and Cross examination or not.

[Tribble]

I agree with using the Lincoln Douglas approach.

The issue I have with "Resolved: The president should continue to be elected by Electoral College" is that the affirmative side would have the overwhelming advantage. The affirmative side would be able to argue for maintaining the status quo, undoing the status quo and returning to the original system, and/or reforming the electoral college to make it proportionate. The negative side would only be able to argue that the electoral college should be abolished (which the affirmative side would be quick to point out may not be necessary if the electoral college is proportional).

IMO we may have found the real crux of the matter, regardless of the specific system used though: should the USA president be directly elected by the people, or not?

What do you think?

[The Romulan Republic]

That seems to me to be the strongest topic in a sense, the most clear-cut choice that boils the issue down to the fundamental question- should we be a nation that elects our leaders by the will of the people, or indirectly by a group of delegates?

[Gerald Tarrant]

IMO we may have found the real crux of the matter, regardless of the specific system used though: should the USA president be directly elected by the people, or not?

What do you think?

Yes that seems fine, if both parties are fair minded about it, they can probably just translate the affirmative or negative side to "status quo" vs "popular vote". With LD style good: because it makes these good values happen, here's why I would judge them better than the opponents.

You interested in debating this then? I'm feeling like I might like to make a stab at this, with the caveat, that I'm have finals next week, so there are external time pressures, which will delay.

[Tribble]

Yes that seems fine, if both parties are fair minded about it, they can probably just translate the affirmative or negative side to "status quo" vs "popular vote". With LD style good: because it makes these good values happen, here's why I would judge them better than the opponents.

Funnily enough I was going to lump in "status quo" with the popular vote since for practical purposes the status quo is preventing electors from voting independently, which is contrary to how the Electoral College was originally supposed to work. IMO the status quo is a version of the popular vote, albeit one that is arguably very flawed.

You interested in debating this then? I'm feeling like I might like to make a stab at this, with the caveat, that I'm have finals next week, so there are external time pressures, which will delay.

Sure I'd be happy to, though I admit that I'm not the best choice as I am not a good debater.

I was thinking of arguing that the Electoral College as originally intended was the best way to go, and that the public should not directly vote for the president (whether it is the status quo via "winner take all" or some form of proportional voting).

Would that work for you? How would you like to proceed? Which side would you prefer? I'm good either way.

Or would you prefer to stick to the "winner take all" vs "proportionate voting" debate (both being forms where the president is more or less elected directly, albeit with different mechanisms IMO), which seems to be the most popular?

[Gerald Tarrant]

I'm sorry I thought you were wanting to do this. I didn't mean to challenge or anything. If there's someone who would like to argue in favor of change, whether the view Tribble presented or their own view, I'm happy to defend the status quo on the Presidential Election system.

[Tribble]

I'm sorry I thought you were wanting to do this. I didn't mean to challenge or anything. If there's someone who would like to argue in favor of change, whether the view Tribble presented or their own view, I'm happy to defend the status quo on the Presidential Election system.

Oh I didn't see this as a challenge I'm just trying to figure out the best way to frame the debate since the Electoral College has a couple of different aspects to it and there are multiple ways to change it (or abolish it). I've been trying to narrow it down, and "popular vote" vs "electors decide" seem to be the one that encompasses all of the options at once (since the popular vote can take different forms). Of course I could be wrong.

And I'm perfectly fine with participating and I'm fine taking either side, I'm just openly acknowledging that I'm not the best suited when it comes to debating. If someone feels that they are more qualified and/or be more entertaining for a Coliseum match, feel free to speak up. Though sometimes it is kind of fun watching novices such as myself get squashed, which is why I'm happy to oblige

[Tribble]

Or we could just do "status quo" vs "proportionate vote", I'm good with that too. Take your pick on which debate you'd prefer, and choose your side lol.

[Gerald Tarrant]

I'm willing to debate in favor of the Electoral College as it presently stands. I'm willing to debate against whatever flavor of "it ought to be changed" an opponent chooses.

[Tribble]

I'm willing to debate in favor of the Electoral College as it presently stands. I'm willing to debate against whatever flavor of "it ought to be changed" an opponent chooses.

I'm willing to debate that the Electoral College should return to its original inception with voters choosing electors, and electors choosing the president independently.

All should note that this debate would essentially ignore the issue of proportionality since both sides agree with the Electoral College's current format; the differing opinion would be over how it functions.

How much time would you like to prepare? (subject to both sides agreeing to extensions)

How many rounds? How much time for each response? (subject to both sides agreeing to extensions)

[Gerald Tarrant]

If you're willing to present your case first, I can probably be ready within three or four days of you.

[Tribble]

Very well. To give us enough to adequately prepare (I also have finals coming up) I shall make my initial post next Wednesday.

Just for clarity (since my OP did not include the format of the debate) here is my full proposal for the rules (subject to Mod approval):

1) There will be three rounds of debate. I will start by making the initial post next Wednesday. (subject to extensions with consent of both parties and Mods)
2) Your first rebuttal will be required within 4 days (subject to extensions with consent of both parties and Mods)
3) 72 hour (three day) time limit for remaining rebuttals (subject to extensions with consent of both parties and Mods)
4) After a post by a debater, the other side may ask up to 5 questions. Though either debater can waive their own questions, should they so choose.The questions must be answered within 48 hours (subject to extensions with consent of both parties and Mods).
5) Any sources used must be cited, preferably with a url where the material can be found.
6) Any points unanswered by the immediately following rebuttal post will be considered conceded for the purposes of the debate. Calls for evidence, etc. are considered contending the point, belittling statements are not. At mutual consent of the debaters, this may be waived.
7) No editing of posts for non-grammatical reason after they have been made, except with mutual consent of both the debaters.
8 ) One post per rebuttal. (subject to extensions with consent of both debaters and Mods)
9) The debate shall be focused primarily on the "big issue" or moral questions being asked; while evidence may be incorporated it is not crucial to the debate.
10) An understanding from everyone that both sides engaging in a debate, and thus their views are solely those being expressed in the debate and not, necessarily, those they hold in real life.

Any suggestions? Are these terms agreeable? If so, then we shall present our case to the Mods for approval of this Coliseum battle!

[Gerald Tarrant]

That seems fine, I was hoping for clarification on these

1) There will be three rounds of debate. I will start by making the initial post next Wednesday. (subject to extensions with consent of both parties and Mods) To be clear by round you mean both sides post in a round yes?
2) Your first rebuttal will be required within 4 days (subject to extensions with consent of both parties and Mods)
In LD both the Affirmative and Negative present a case, it's essentially why affirming or negating (respectively) the resolution is the superior choice, this means that the negative's first rebuttal is a case for their side, and then a logical response to claims the affirmative made.

[Tribble]

My apologies for not clarifying that enough, yes your first rebuttal is a case for your side, and then a logical response to claims I made.