How will judges decide who won the debate?
Usually the judge will decide based on the criteria that the debaters establish in the round- for example, if the debaters agree that what we need to do is try to save lives, than the judge should decide whether the proposition’s proposal saves more lives than the present system. If the debaters agree that we are trying to preserve liberty, then the judge decides based on whether the proposal preserves more liberty than it hurts. Rarely, however, do debaters agree on decision criteria. If the subject for debate was “This House would sacrifice liberty to promote security,” then the proposition team would most likely argue for restrictions on freedom to improve security — let’s say that they might propose a system of national identification cards. They would argue that this proposal would keep us safe from terrorists and the like. Then the opposition would probably say that this proposal would be bad because it invades privacy.
