Mission

Election Debates is dedicated to improving the quality of election debates and election debate coverage by critically assessing the quality or arguments and performance of speakers.

At Election Debates you will find election debate opinions by some of the world’s foremost experts on competitive debate.  Our judges include winners of prestigious international debate tournaments and authors of respected debate publications. Blogger judges come from Australia, North America, Europe and Asia.

You’ll enjoy the detail, depth and objectivity of our assessments. We aim to provide detailed reasoning, that looks beyond political spin and media hype to the actual issues being debated. We do this by applying the rules of debate.

You won’t always agree with us, just as we don’t always agree. Indeed, there are two types of decisions you’ll find at Election Debates: a unanimous one (where we all agree on the result) and a split one (where we are divided).

Election Debates is a not for profit entity. We have no corporate, government, NGO or political affiliations. Our contributors do not get paid; we are motivated by an interest in debate and politics and a desire to see the modern phenomenon of televised leaders debates benefit the community.

Election Debates was founded by Ray D’Cruz in 2008 in the lead up to the US Presidential Elections. Election Debates has now covered televised leaders’ debates from the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Ireland.

Statement of Purpose & Principles

Our Purpose

To improve the quality of election debate analysis

To stimulate public discussion about election debates

To educate the public and stakeholders 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.

How we judge debates

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. We have chosen a single assessment method for judging so that visitors can benchmark judge opinions, debaters and debates. Judges 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. Judges view and assess the debate without conferring with each other.