Instigator / Pro
Nyxified's avatar
18
Nyxified
1593
rating
21
debates
66.67%
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Topic
#3178

First Past The Post (FPTP) Voting Should Be Replaced

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
6
3
Better sources
6
6
Better legibility
3
3
Better conduct
3
3

After 3 votes and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...

Nyxified
Tags
Politics
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Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
One week
Max argument characters
20,000
Voting period
Two months
Point system
Multiple criterions
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Open
Contender / Con
Fruit_Inspector's avatar
15
Fruit_Inspector
1632
rating
20
debates
72.5%
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Description

First Past The Post (FPTP): A system where, in a vote between two or more options/candidates/parties, whatever/whoever receives the most amount of votes is the winner of the vote.
A Vote (noun): A contest between two or more options where the goal is to represent the desires/beliefs of those who voted and (ideally) to act accordingly in order to ensure that more people's desires/beliefs are represented and (ideally) acted upon than are not. The more people's desires/beliefs that are represented and are (ideally) acted upon, the better.
Vote (verb): The act of declaring, between two or more options in a vote, which option any given person wants to win the vote. OFTEN (not always) a person/entity can vote for only one option and can only vote once per vote.

BoP is shared. Pro should attempt to prove that FPTP voting has flaws that warrant its replacement and present an alternative that, on balance, is more effective at achieving the goals of a vote (to represent/act upon the desires/beliefs of the most people possible to the greatest degree possible) with less flaws than FPTP. Con should attempt to prove that the flaws outlined by pro in FPTP voting are invalid, and/or the benefits of FPTP are stronger than that of any other voting system (or at least the alternative presented by pro)/FPTP has less flaws, and/or any other good reason that FPTP voting should not be replaced with an alternative system.

Examples of alternatives to FPTP include but are not limited to: Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMPR), Alternative Voting (AV), Single Transferable Vote (STV), etc...

No brand new information/arguments should be presented in the final round. The final round should be reserved for refutations/defences and restatements that do not require brand new, never seen before or established information, and summary of the debate/why your side should win.

Please comment for any questions or any requests for changes. Constructive feedback always welcomed, and I aim to make the fairest debate possible!

Round 1
Nyxified's avatar
Nyxified
Pro
#1
First Past The Post (FPTP) Voting Should Be Replaced

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Model
   2.1 Key Terms
   2.2 Resolution/BoP
   2.3 Pro’s Case
3. Constructive Arguments/Analyses
   3.1 The Function of Voting
   3.2 Problems With FPTP
   3.3 Benefits of Alternate Methods
   3.4 Summary
4. Conclusions
5. Citations



1. Introduction

Honourable speaker,

This debate asks if the FPTP system, a voting system for many democratic systems and other things in the world, should be replaced with an alternative system. The point of voting is to represent the people who voted and their interests, so it would seem to me self-evident that, if a system of voting is not doing as well at that job as other systems are, that system, barring any other reasons, should be passed over for an alternate system.

I will go on in this speech to show all the reasons in which FPTP is inferior to alternative systems and the best thing to do is to replace it. There is good reason to believe that FPTP drifts to, if not a two party system, a de-facto two party system more often than not.


2. Model

2.1 Key Terms

First Past the Post (FPTP): “A voting system where the candidate with the most votes (a plurality) wins, without any form of preference transfer.” -Wiktionary
Alternative Vote (AV): “Voters rank candidates in order of preference. If any 1 candidate receives a majority of first-preference votes, that candidate is elected. If no candidate does, the last-place candidate is eliminated and that candidate’s voter’s second preferences are reapportioned to others and so on until a candidate clears the 50% + 1 threshold.” -Brittanica
Single Transferable Vote (STV): “a vote on a ballot that can be transferred from a candidate of first choice who has already obtained the necessary quota of votes for election to a candidate marked by the voter as second or third choice in order that every vote may count toward the election of a candidate” -Merriam Webster (for further info, see citation 1)
Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMPR): “How does the system work for voters? Voters have two votes: one for a candidate running in their riding, and a second for a party or a candidate on a party list. The riding candidates can be affiliated with a party or run as independents. The members of a party list can either be selected by the party or voted on individually.” -Samara Centre for Democracy
Regional: “Regional is used to describe things which relate to a particular area of a country or of the world.” -ReversoDictionary
Representation: “If a group or person has representation in a parliament or on a committee, someone in the parliament or on the committee supports them and makes decisions on their behalf.” -ReversoDictionary
Should be: “Used to say or ask what is the correct or best thing to do” -Cambridge English Dictionary
Replaced: “To take the place of something, or to put something or someone in the place of something or someone else” -Cambridge English Dictionary

2.2 Resolution/BoP

The wording of the resolution is general. Obviously there are some cases where FPTP might make more sense (e.g. a poll between a dozen people where anything other than FPTP could be a needless complication), but in general, on balance, for the most important and most common uses where there are usually more than two candidates to vote for, the resolution states we should replace FPTP. The resolution doesn’t state that FPTP should not be allowed to exist or we would prefer a world without it, but just that it should be replaced. Better said, the best choice we could make would be to replace it.

Pro should aim to prove that FPTP has considerable/significant flaws that make it a less representative/effective system that, in general/on balance, is a bad system relative to other alternative systems. Pro should defend any criticisms of the proposed alternative systems and maintain their own criticisms of FPTP.

Con should aim to prove that the flaws of FPTP presented by pro are not valid/considerable and/or are not exclusive or inherent to FPTP. Con should also aim to provide reasons that FPTP is a good system in a way exclusive/inherent to the system.


2.3 Pro’s Case

  1. The Function of Voting
    - Voting is a process to determine the desires of those who voted to (ideally) act upon them.
    - The quality of a voting system is based on its ability for the result of the vote to be most representative of the wants of those who voted. If their first choice cannot be represented, it’s better if their second choice can be represented as opposed to their potentially last choice.
  2. Problems with FPTP
    - FPTP often drifts to a two-party state or a de-facto two-party state because the system makes it so voting for a third-party that’s unlikely to win that you agree with inherently takes away votes from the party that you kinda agree with that’s likely to win, which then supports the parties you disagree with. This creates a perpetual cycle where third-parties can never get off the ground.
    - FPTP is not designed to represent the desires of the people as much as possible. Even if a candidate receives 20% of the vote, as long as that is more than anyone else, they win the vote. This doesn’t lead to as accurate depictions of the desires of voters as alternative systems do.
  3. Benefits of Alternate Methods
    - Alternative systems avoid the pitfalls described prior in multiple ways. One of the concepts some of them use is ranked voting, in which you rank candidates in order of who you would like to be elected. The lowest scoring candidate by number of votes is eliminated, and their votes are distributed to the second choice of those who voted for said candidate. This ensures people can vote for who they want to win without fear of increasing the chance that those who are ideologically opposed to the voter will win.
    - Methods like MMPR can still ensure regional representation while still ensuring the best representation.


3. Constructive Arguments/Analyses

3.1 The Function of Voting 

“Vote: a formal expression of opinion or choice made by an individual or body of individuals, especially in an election.” -Dictionary.com

The purpose of a vote, self-evidently, is to represent the opinions and/or desires of those who voted. In my opinion, it would be very daunting to attempt to claim that the democratic process would not be better if it could better represent the desires of citizens. However, one might make the claim that things like ranked voting do not better represent the desires of citizens and thus the function of voting because they do not represent their first choice. Let’s look at an example to show why this isn’t true.

Say there’s a fictional country. We’ll name it Canada for no reason in particular. In this country, there are three completely fictional parties: the Liberals, the Conservatives, and the New Democratic Party (NDP). Say that the Liberals win 35% of the vote, the conservatives win 40% of the vote, and the NDP win 25% of the vote. Now

Let’s also say that most Liberal voters and most NDP voters would both be, while perhaps not happy if the other were to win the election, they would be okay with it, as they have similar policies, but both would be unhappy if the conservatives won. Under FPTP, the conservatives would win a vote if there were only one winner, despite the fact 60% of the population would be unhappy with that and only 40% would be happy.

Under a system like AV, almost all NDP voters would choose the Liberals as their second choice, as they represent their beliefs much more than the Conservatives, giving the Liberals 60% of the vote and allowing them to clear the 50% threshold needed to win the vote. While this might lead to only 35% of people being happy, which is less than the 40% mentioned earlier, it also leads to 25% of people being either happy or at least feeling okay with the result of the vote as the ruling party at least in some part represents their interests. Undoubtedly, that 25% is at least considerably happier that the conservatives aren’t the ones who won.

This was an example with only 3 parties, but the concept of systems like AV or STV is shown more and more as more parties are introduced to the example. It leads to a world where people can still vote for the party they want to according to their political beliefs, but still allows for those voters to coalesce around a candidate that the most people want to win more than they don’t. 

For these reasons, it would seem clear to pro that the function of voting is better served by a method like AV than it is by FPTP.


3.2 Problems With FPTP

Expanding upon 3.1, FPTP almost inevitably drifts to a two-party system or a de-facto two-party system. When it comes to third parties (such as the NDP in Canada), even if they represent what voters want more than a more moderate party, under the FPTP system, people are afraid that they “have no chance at winning” and will vote for the more moderate Liberal (this is called ‘strategic voting’). This is true even though if the voters who most wanted the NDP to win voted for the NDP then the NDP would have a chance to win the election. Voters need that safety that they aren’t inadvertently supporting the opposing party by voting for who they want to vote[2]. 

In Canada, FPTP has led to a country where even though the parliamentary system, the history of the great depression giving a foundation for the NDP, and the political position of Quebec leading to considerable support of the Bloc Quebecois all have brought about a parliament where there are effectively 4 parties with considerable influence (sorry, Green Party), two parties hold incredible sway and have for a century been the only ones with any chance of winning a majority. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives oftentimes each have more seats in parliament than all third-parties combined.

Something similar was seen in the Democratic primary with senator Bernie Sanders. Before I continue, I want to say this example doesn’t support pro’s case, it shows the prevalence of strategic voting. Continuing on, despite the fact Sanders often-times better represented the desires of voters (e.g. medicare-for-all[3]), he lost, and one of the big reasons he lost was because voters thought he ‘couldn’t beat Trump’[4]. While it would be great if Sanders, Biden, and Trump could all run in an election with the AV system in order to avoid this problem, that would be a completely fictional scenario. 

The concern that more moderate Democrats would vote Republican if Sanders won and give Trump a victory is not necessarily unfounded, as much as I would like to claim it’s false, so this doesn’t say anything about FPTP specifically. What this example does show is that people vote strategically, focusing on beating those who are ideologically opposed to them by voting for those who are ideologically similar to them instead of voting for those who are ideologically close to them. While this example is not applicable as an argument against using FPTP in an election for president as an example, the problem of strategic voting that the example shows is a problem that FPTP worsens significantly. This problem can and should be diminished by implementation of alternative systems. 

To restate what was said in 3.1, based on the example that I gave, FPTP self-evidently drifts to a system where it can be against your own best interests to vote for the party you most want to. Any system that allows that to happen, where possible and practical, should be replaced.
 

3.3 Benefits of Alternate Methods

Let’s look at another example. Let’s say there’s a country that uses a system to elect regional representatives. This country uses hundreds of small elections to choose each member of parliament based on districts, and there is basically no national election; parties get a majority by winning a majority of the regional elections and thus getting a majority of the seats in parliament.

Now, in this system, hundreds of elections using AV would work as explained earlier to ensure the majority of people have a candidate that they’re at least okay with, but we can go further. In a system with hundreds of representatives for the legislative process, it would make sense to allocate seats according to percentage of the vote. While AV would prevent a 35%-25%-40% split as described in 3.1 which would lead to 60% of voters being unhappy, ideally we would be able to make sure that the most people are represented as possible.

In said example, there could only be one winner, but in a parliament like this, we could award 35% of seats to the Liberals, 25% of seats to the NDP, and 40% of seats to the Conservatives. Now it doesn’t even matter if the Conservatives have more seats than either, because combined, the NDP and the Liberals have a simple majority and can (ideally) collaborate on policy while everyone gets representatives of their party that they most align themselves with and said party gets a say on policy, forcing compromise instead of just avoiding a considerably worse alternative. 

This system, as I just described it, foregoes regional representation, however. If we wanted to avoid this pitfall, we could use MMPR and get a similar benefit. Under MMPR (as explained by citation 5), there are regional elections that elect one winner, ensuring that all regions have representation. In those same elections, voters also vote for a party and not a representative as well.

You add the regional representatives to the parliament and add additional seats as is necessary to be allocated to the parties that were voted for in order to best represent the national desires of the citizens. This is a benefit that, alongside the benefits of AV described earlier, cannot be found under FPTP and can only be found under alternative systems.


3.4 Summary

In conclusion, I’ve given good reasons to believe there is significant benefit to be gained from using alternative systems as opposed to FPTP and I have shown why said benefits can not be gained under FPTP. I believe it to be very clear that these benefits are considerable, important, and themselves show that they should replace FPTP because of their ability to be more representative. My arguments/analyses have been: 1. The function of voting and how it is greater fulfilled by alternative systems, 2. Problems with FPTP and strategic voting, and 3. The benefits of alternative systems such as MMPR in being able to award people both regional representation while also ensuring that the legislative process is as representative as possible of the nation-wide preferences of the voters.


4. Conclusions

In conclusion, I’ve shown in this speech all the arguments/analyses that form pro’s belief that FPTP voting should be replaced in order to ensure a more effective system. Those arguments/analyses are: 1. The function of voting is to ensure a representative system, 2. FPTP has several problems that diminish its ability to be representative, and 3. Alternative methods do not have these flaws and thus are capable of avoiding these pitfalls.

In order to overcome this, con should aim to question if the flaws I presented are considerable as I claim or something inherent to FPTP/not an equally as prevalent and serious problem in other voting systems. They should also provide their own good reasons to believe in the effectiveness and capability of FPTP along with any other reasons FPTP should not be replaced.

For all these reasons, so proud to propose.


5. Citations

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI 
  2. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/scheer-singh-voters-election-pitch-1.5319507 
  3. https://www.newsweek.com/69-percent-americans-want-medicare-all-including-46-percent-republicans-new-poll-says-1500187 
  4. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-three-reasons-bernie-sanders-could-never-beat-joe-biden 
  5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU 
Fruit_Inspector's avatar
Fruit_Inspector
Con
#2
Allow me to restate the resolution:

First Past The Post (FPTP) Voting Should Be Replaced

This resolution is calling for the replacement of FPTP voting, but there is no specification given as to the context in which it should be replaced. This gives the impression that FPTP voting should be replaced as a general axiom, no matter the context. 

If FPTP voting is defined as "a system where, in a vote between two or more options/candidates/parties, whatever/whoever receives the most amount of votes is the winner of the vote," it seems this debate operates using FPTP voting. At the conclusion of this debate, users will have the opportunity to vote between one of two options. Those who believe FPTP voting should be replaced may cast their vote for PRO. Those who believe FPTP voting should not be replaced may cast their vote for CON.

I will ask one question to my opponent in this round:

Do you believe the current method of voting that will be used at the conclusion of this debate (FPTP) should be replaced?
Round 2
Nyxified's avatar
Nyxified
Pro
#3
Rebuttals

“This resolution is calling for the replacement of FPTP voting, but there is no specification given as to the context in which it should be replaced. This gives the impression that FPTP voting should be replaced as a general axiom, no matter the context.” 

Yes, in general FPTP should be replaced. If we had the choice between replacing and not replacing FPTP, the resolution implies that, in general, we should make the choice to replace it because it would provide a much more substantial good. I apologize if the way I wrote this was (potentially outright) misleading. I was tired at the time and rushing it to begin with, so it was not my intention, but all I meant to do was acknowledge that there may perhaps exist some case in which FPTP shouldn’t be replaced and that this wouldn’t defeat the resolution. Again, I apologize and admit fault if this came off the wrong way.

“If FPTP voting is defined as "a system where, in a vote between two or more options/candidates/parties, whatever/whoever receives the most amount of votes is the winner of the vote," it seems this debate operates using FPTP voting. At the conclusion of this debate, users will have the opportunity to vote between one of two options. Those who believe FPTP voting should be replaced may cast their vote for PRO. Those who believe FPTP voting should not be replaced may cast their vote for CON.

I will ask one question to my opponent in this round:

Do you believe the current method of voting that will be used at the conclusion of this debate (FPTP) should be replaced?”

In the same place where I called the resolution a “general” one, I mentioned that perhaps FPTP should not be replaced in some contexts due to it potentially being a needless complication, and here’s exactly what I meant by that which shows why con’s argument is invalid:

  • In the case of any vote with only two options from which to vote for, a system like AV would function identically to FPTP because it’s impossible for there to be a case where neither option has over 50% of the vote. 
  • In the case of a vote with 4 voters and 3 options, there is no allocation of votes from which AV serves a function. Either one of the three options achieves over 50% of the vote or two options of the three tie for 50% of the vote. AV cannot allocate votes from the choice with the least votes to their second choice, as there is no need to do so or no votes to allocate to begin with and thus is identical to FPTP.

While the second case is a microscopic example of a vote, both of them show that AV can sometimes be identical to FPTP. AV should, however, still be used as the voting system of choice above FPTP because of the other benefits mentioned. Better said, when AV is different from FPTP, it performs better, and when it’s identical to FPTP, there is no difference, meaning AV is the superior system.

To answer con’s question, it truly doesn’t matter whether the FPTP voting for this debate is replaced or not, but because of the benefits mentioned earlier in my speech, FPTP voting should, as a general axiom, be replaced to serve the moral obligation of democracies to be representative to their citizens. The introduction of AV would not change anything, but in large-scale democracies, the introduction of AV would result in positive change, meaning the resolution should pass.

In these debates, there are only 3 possible options for votes: Pro, Tie, or Con, where Tie is a net-zero vote as it awards the same amount of points to both sides. If someone voted for tie in all 4 categories, the winner would be the same as if they had not voted at all, so there are effectively only two choices, or an FPTP vote where an AV vote would change nothing as mentioned before.

In a debate like this, if a tie vote were to be counted as an actual vote instead of a net-zero vote, we could perhaps see something where, if pro got 40% of the vote, con got 35% of the vote, and tie got 25% of the vote, pro wouldn’t necessarily win the debate. Say, for example, the second choice of tie voters was 64% to con and 36% to pro, resulting in con getting 51% and pro getting 49% of votes. This has the benefit that, while more people thought pro won as their first choice, the majority of people thought that con would win if it had to be one of the two. This results in a more representative result.

Of course, there are many problems with the example of a debate like this that I just gave, and I in no way am saying that we should absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, implement that on this website, but rather, all I am saying is that this is not as absurd of an idea as con might want you to believe.

Con presented no other rebuttals or constructive reasons to believe FPTP should not be replaced, and they have thus failed to meet their burden of proof.


Fruit_Inspector's avatar
Fruit_Inspector
Con
#4
PRO has tried to invalidate my argument that FPTP voting should be replaced in every instance by showing two examples where FPTP and AV voting are functionally indistinguishable:
  • In the case of any vote with only two options from which to vote for, a system like AV would function identically to FPTP because it’s impossible for there to be a case where neither option has over 50% of the vote.
  • In the case of a vote with 4 voters and 3 options, there is no allocation of votes from which AV serves a function. Either one of the three options achieves over 50% of the vote or two options of the three tie for 50% of the vote. AV cannot allocate votes from the choice with the least votes to their second choice, as there is no need to do so or no votes to allocate to begin with and thus is identical to FPTP.

The problem is that every situation where voting takes place is not covered by these two examples. What about a survey of 1,000 people with four options to choose from? In this instance, the chosen method of voting between FPTP and AV would not be functionally indistinguishable. Why complicate such a survey with secondary choices as AV proposes?

Consider this argument from PRO:
In a debate like this, if a tie vote were to be counted as an actual vote instead of a net-zero vote, we could perhaps see something where, if pro got 40% of the vote, con got 35% of the vote, and tie got 25% of the vote, pro wouldn’t necessarily win the debate. Say, for example, the second choice of tie voters was 64% to con and 36% to pro, resulting in con getting 51% and pro getting 49% of votes. This has the benefit that, while more people thought pro won as their first choice, the majority of people thought that con would win if it had to be one of the two. This results in a more representative result.

The bolded section is important because it implies that the only possible outcome is that PRO or CON must win; the debate cannot end in a tie. PRO's application of AV voting in this situation actually misrepresents the beliefs of those who believe the debate ended in a tie because it makes that outcome impossible.

Let me slightly adjust my questioning from Round 1 given PRO's argumentation:

Let's say voters are given the following options to choose from at the conclusion of this debate:
  • PRO wins
  • CON wins
  • Tie
Would it be more representative of voters' beliefs to follow an FPTP format? Or would it be more representative of voters' beliefs to remove all the votes of those who think the debate ended in a tie, and place them in favor of PRO or CON winning the debate as you have proposed?


Round 3
Nyxified's avatar
Nyxified
Pro
#5
Rebuttals:

The problem is that every situation where voting takes place is not covered by these two examples. What about a survey of 1,000 people with four options to choose from? In this instance, the chosen method of voting between FPTP and AV would not be functionally indistinguishable. Why complicate such a survey with secondary choices as AV proposes?
Obviously these are not the only scenarios for voting. Con simply chooses to ignore every argument that I have given throughout my speech without bothering to rebuke it whatsoever. “Why complicate such a survey with secondary choices as AV Proposes?” Well, I already explained that in my first and second speech, and this is clearly not a rebuttal of any sort. There are many reasons that alternative methods are superior to FPTP, which I will list again:

  • The ability of AV to ensure that the final result of any given vote is representative of the candidate/choice that a majority of voters are satisfied with, even if they are not happy with, rather than choosing the candidate that a minority of voters would be happy with and a majority of voters would be unhappy with.
  • How AV upends the concept of ‘strategic voting’, said concept leading to less representative democracies and inability for parties that are politically further from the centre to get off the ground even if they better represent the interests of the people than the existing parties and would perhaps win the election if people voted with their interests.
  • MMPR allows proportional representation and local representation simultaneously, which avoids the problem of allocating representatives based only on the victory of local elections in a FPTP system (e.g. if party A got 40% of the vote in all 100 local elections and party B and party C both get 30% of the vote, MMPR avoids the problem that party A would get 100% of the seats in parliament while giving local representation via the selection of MPs without harming the ability to represent the overall desire of the people by looking at the total vote count).

AV is no more complicated than, in a vote with 4 options, ranking every option from 1-4. If it can give the benefits I mentioned that con hasn’t disputed throughout this entire debate, then I fail to see any reason that it is too much of a complication to be worthwhile.
The bolded section is important because it implies that the only possible outcome is that PRO or CON must win; the debate cannot end in a tie. PRO's application of AV voting in this situation actually misrepresents the beliefs of those who believe the debate ended in a tie because it makes that outcome impossible.

Let me slightly adjust my questioning from Round 1 given PRO's argumentation:

Let's say voters are given the following options to choose from at the conclusion of this debate:
  • PRO wins
  • CON wins
  • Tie
Would it be more representative of voters' beliefs to follow an FPTP format? Or would it be more representative of voters' beliefs to remove all the votes of those who think the debate ended in a tie, and place them in favor of PRO or CON winning the debate as you have proposed?

Allow me to remind you all what I said right after what con is quoting:

Of course, there are many problems with the example of a debate like this that I just gave, and I in no way am saying that we should absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, implement that on this website, but rather, all I am saying is that this is not as absurd of an idea as con might want you to believe.
Con was claiming that the idea of using AV voting for a debate like this was, in itself, ridiculous. This was an example that I admitted was flawed and said I didn’t agree with that I gave to demonstrate AV voting on DART is not inherently ridiculous. This example isn’t even about switching FPTP to AV, it was an example that changed the way that a tie vote functions from a net-zero vote to a positive choice. I mention this again now because my argument literally states that, without this change, a switch from FPTP to AV on DART wouldn’t matter. Con clearly, then, is purposefully presenting a disingenuous representation of my argument.

It’s not more representative to follow an FPTP format in the example I gave anyways, because there’s no way for a tie vote to win. The tie vote has only gotten 25% of the vote, lower than both pro and con, and thus there is no conceivable way that the tie vote can prevail and get over 50% of the votes in the debate. There is no way for tie voters to have their belief represented. The vote is, no matter what in this scenario, going to be won either by pro or by con, and it is my belief that AV should be implemented in this purely hypothetical scenario because those who voted for the 3rd option that didn’t win deserve to have a say on the final result of the vote no different from how they would if the 3rd option was not candidate/option in the first place. Democracy is about consensus, and it’s not absurd or unrepresentative, quite the contrary, in fact, to effectively say “alright, it has to be one of these and not the one you wanted. You still get to pick which one you’d like to vote for that’s left."

On DART, as it currently stands, a tie vote is a net-zero vote. If someone voted for a tie on all 4 categories, the score would be identical to what it would be if they had not voted. This isn’t debatable. On DART, there are only two real options: pro or con. Points in a debate are only awarded to pro or con. These are the only two options that get points. A tie result is no different from a tie result in an FPTP or an AV election, since it amounts to both sides getting an equal number of votes/total point value, rather than tie being an affirmative choice in itself. There was no way to write “tie” on the 2020 US election, yet it was theoretically still possible for Biden and Trump to have tied the electoral college.

What tie being a net-zero vote means is that a vote on DART has only 2 positive choices, and falls under what I said in my 2nd speech: a vote with only 2 options will function identically under FPTP or AV, but the reason the resolution follows is because AV is better than FPTP in most scenarios and, in the other scenarios, is no better or worse, making AV the better choice.

I really want to stress this: Con has presented no constructive arguments. Con has given not a single constructive argument and thus has failed to meet their BoP.


Fruit_Inspector's avatar
Fruit_Inspector
Con
#6
Let me begin this final round by stating the resolution again:
  • First Past The Post (FPTP) Voting Should Be Replaced
We were also given this definition of a vote:
  • A contest between two or more options where the goal is to represent the desires/beliefs of those who voted and (ideally) to act accordingly in order to ensure that more people's desires/beliefs are represented and (ideally) acted upon than are not. The more people's desires/beliefs that are represented and are (ideally) acted upon, the better.

The resolution created by PRO does not make any distinctions as to when FPTP voting should be replaced. The statement is being presented as a general axiom. If there is a situation where FPTP voting should not be replaced, the resolution fails.

Are FPTP and AV Voting Interchangeable on Smaller Scales?
This is likely PRO's strongest argument. There are some instances on smaller scales where the two systems function identically. But where this argument fails is that there are also instances where AV voting would lead to different results compared to FPTP.

In the debate example that PRO provided in Round 2 where voters could choose between PRO, CON, or tie, I showed in my rebuttal that AV voting would actually change the result. I will also note that I did not specifically reference the DebateArt format in my Round 2 argument. Rather, I presented a general debate vote with the three aforementioned choices. It is a misrepresentation of my argument to claim otherwise. Recall that voting, according to PRO, is "the act of declaring, between two or more options in a vote, which option any given person wants to win the vote." A vote for a tie in this debate is to express that one believes there was no winner. This is itself an option, even if "tie" is not one of the debaters.

If most voters thought the debate was a tie, then the end result (one of the available options for voters to choose) would be that neither side wins the debate under FPTP voting. The voters' beliefs are accurately represented. Under AV voting that PRO presented in Round 2, their votes would be removed from the tie option, and they would essentially be forced to choose PRO or CON. AV voting would change the result and misrepresent the beliefs of the majority who voted for a tie. In this case, if the goal is to represent the beliefs of voters, FPTP should not be replaced.

Complications
PRO has tried to tell us in the last round that AV voting is no more complicated than FPTP because a voter just has to rank options from one to four. But this contradicts his own argument from Round 1 where he said that there were some instances that using anything other than FPTP is a "needless complication." I was also not referring only to the complication for voters in a survey of 1,000 people, but also the complication of tallying votes and possibly having to recount if no majority is met under the AV system. By PRO's own argument, anything other than FPTP is a needless complication. Thus, FPTP should not be replaced.

Conclusion
Here is my opponent's final argument:
Con has presented no constructive arguments. Con has given not a single constructive argument and thus has failed to meet their BoP.

My argument has actually been quite simple from the beginning. I believe there are instances where the resolution fails and FPTP should not be replaced. PRO has also expressed agreement with me. As PRO stated in Round 1, anything other than FPTP voting is a "needless complication." 

The debate scenario in my Round 2 argument presents another instance where the resolution fails. AV voting would misrepresent the view of the majority voting for a tie, whereas FPTP would accurately represent the belief of the majority. To test the resolution, we could ask it in the form of a question:
  • Should FPTP voting be replaced?
If an example is provided where the answer to that question is no, then the resolution fails. That is my BoP. My opponent and I have both agreed that there are instances where FPTP voting should not be replaced. That is my argument.