This site is dedicated to improving the quality of election debates by critically assessing quality and performance.
Visitors will find election debate opinions by some of the world’s foremost experts on competitive debate. Our blogger judges include winners of prestigious international debate tournaments and authors of respected debate publications. Blogger judges come from Australia, North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
You’ll enjoy the detail, depth and objectivity of our assessments. You won’t always agree of course, and we welcome the debate!
Election Debates understands the value that debate can bring to individuals and communities.
Statement of Purpose and Principles
Our Purpose
To improve the quality of election debate analysis
To stimulate public discussion about election debates
To educate the public about debates and the value of debate
To develop relationships with media and debate associations
Our Principles
Objectivity: we will analayse debates by applying the objective rules of debate. These rules will be applied rigorously in order to ensure an impartial, unbiased assessment, regardless of the adjudicators personal or political opinions.
Respect: we will not publish comments which may be considered offensive or discriminatory. We want to encourage widespread participation in debate discussion based on mutual respect.
Adjudication Criteria
We assess debates according to the World Parliamentary Debate Rules. These rules are used by the World Universities Debating Championships, World Masters and numerous national parliamentary competitions.
Judges will decide who won the debate and provide reasons for their decision. Assessing persuasiveness comes down to two areas: matter (or substance) and manner (or style). There are a range of capabilities judges assess in considering these two areas. There is no one approach that works and judges do not apply a tick-a-box approach to their assessment. They consider matter and manner in order to assess the overall persuasiveness of the speaker and their arguments.
Some discretion needs to be exercised in the application of these rules. For example, the rules describe team debates while most election debates feature individuals. Furthermore, the rules contemplate points of information coming from an opposing speaker, while most election debates feature questioning from an independent, expert panel. Nevertheless, the underlying principles of persuasion remain the same and can be applied regardless of the structure or format of the debate.
We have chosen a single assessment method for judging so that visitors can benchmark judge opinions, debaters and debates. We anticipate ongoing dialogue about the best method for assessing debates … and we do not anticipate full agreement on the issue!
