Voting Issues

The decision wizard does not ask you who won the round and leave you staring at a text box. You pick the few arguments the round came down to, then decide those one at a time. This page explains what a voting issue is, how you choose which ones to decide, what you see on each one, and why the analysis stays hidden until you have written your own call.

What a voting issue is

A voting issue is one argument and everything that happened to it: who made it, who answered it and how, whether its own side kept it alive through the last speech, and whether either side said why it mattered more than anything else in the round.

That is the unit debaters are coached to think in, and it is the unit you actually decide on. "Who won the economy argument?" is a question you can answer from what was said. "Who won the round?" is not, until you have answered the first kind of question a few times.

First you pick which ones to decide

The step is called What did the round come down to? It lists the arguments still alive at the end of the round. Each row says who made it and, in one line, what happened to it. You tick the ones your decision rests on.

Two or three is the normal answer. A Public Forum decision rests on a couple of arguments; the rest are points you heard, considered and set aside.

Not every argument reaches this list. It holds the ones a team carried into their final focus - either developed there, or at least named. An argument a team stopped making before the last speech is not something the round should turn on.

Some rows are ticked for you when you arrive - at most three, and only ones nobody answered or that both sides argued and weighed. Every box is yours to change. Tick one the app left alone, untick one it offered, or tick all of them. If you change the ticks and want the first set back, Back to the suggestion restores it.

You need at least one ticked to move on. With none ticked there is nothing to decide and nothing to write a reason for decision from, so Next waits.

What happened to each argument

Each row carries one word for how the argument ended up:

• Unanswered - the other side never argued against it
• Contested - both sides argued it, and at least one said why it should matter more
• No weighing - both sides argued it, and neither said why it should decide the round
• Too late - it was first made in the final focus, so the other side never got to answer it

Next to the word is the line that explains it in the round's own terms: "Con never answered this", or "Argued both ways, and both teams said why it should outweigh - on scale and on timeframe."

Only Unanswered and Contested rows are ever ticked for you. An argument nobody weighed, or one made too late to answer, is shown with its word and left entirely to you.

Those are facts about the speeches, not verdicts. You were in the room. If a line reads wrong to you, the tick box is right beside it.

If nobody carried anything

Occasionally no argument makes it to a final focus. Then every argument is listed instead of none, and a fifth word appears on the rows whose own side gave up on them: Dropped. Arguments a team abandoned before the last speech usually should not decide the round, so none of them is ticked for you - but you still decide, from what is there.

If the arguments could not be paired with their answers at all - a round joined late, or speeches that were not recorded - you get one issue to decide from your own notes, with a note saying so. You are never left unable to decide.

Then you see each one you ticked

One screen per ticked issue, in the order they were argued. Nothing you left unticked appears here.

The left side of the screen is the facts. The right side is your call. Nothing on the left tells you who won.

The argument itself

Broken into three parts, in the words the team used:

• The claim - what they said
• Why it is true - the reason they gave
• Why it matters - the consequence they attached to it

If one of those parts is missing, the app says so: "No reason given for why it is true", "No reason given for why it matters", or "Stated as a claim only". That is a fact about the speech, not a verdict. An incomplete argument can still win an issue if the other side never touched it.

What happened to it

Every response the argument received, in speech order, each labelled in plain terms:

• Answered - argued the claim, reasoning or impact is wrong
• Turned - argued the same point actually helps their side
• Rebuilt - answered an attack and rebuilt their own argument (this is the arguing side's own work)
• Weighed - compared how much it matters against another argument
• New argument - put a new argument on the table rather than answering one

Each response is marked strong, moderate or weak, and comes with a short summary and, usually, the speaker's own words. If nobody on the other side ever answered it, the screen says that plainly.

These are the same five words the screen after each speech uses. Turned, Rebuilt and Weighed are underlined wherever they appear, and the definition is one tap away.

What its own side did with it

Two labels, one for the summary and one for the final focus:

• Carried, with reasons - they brought it forward and added something
• Named only - they said its name and moved on
• Dropped - they stopped making it

The distinction between the first two matters more than it looks. Debaters are taught that repeating a title is not extending an argument, and the app holds them to the same standard their coaches do.

Whether anyone weighed it

Weighing is a side saying why their argument matters more than the other side's - how big, how likely, how soon, how many people. If either side did it, you see what they said. Often neither side does, and the screen tells you that too. An unweighed round is a real thing, and noticing it is one of the most useful pieces of feedback a student can get.

Making your call

Three choices per issue, and one box.

Who won this issue? Either team, or "Neither side clearly won this". That third option is a real answer, not an escape hatch. It is there for an issue that was even, unclear, or not carried far enough to matter, and an issue you mark that way counts toward neither side. Some issues genuinely wash, and saying so is more honest than inventing a winner.

Why? Say what was said and where. This is the part that ends up in your reason for decision, and it is the part students learn from. "Con turned this in rebuttal by showing the policy cuts funding, and Pro never answered the turn" teaches something. "Con was more convincing" does not.

You can move between issues in any order and change an answer at any point before you submit.

The app's read stays hidden until you decide

Under your call there is a button: Compare with the analysis. It is greyed out until you have picked a winner and written a reason. The helper text says so: "Make your call and write your reason first."

Once you have committed, you can open it. You will see which way the analysis leaned on that issue, or that it does not see a clear winner, and a short explanation. If your call differs from it, you get a neutral note: the analysis reached a different conclusion, you decide, and your call stays as you made it.

There is no way to copy the analysis into your decision. No button, no autofill. This is deliberate, and it is the single most important design decision in the wizard.

The reason is anchoring. If you see a confident-sounding read of an issue before you have formed your own, your own thinking bends toward it, and you will not notice it happening. The decision on your ballot has to be yours, and it is only yours if you reached it first. Afterwards the comparison is useful - it can catch a response you missed in a speech you were writing notes during - but it arrives as a check, not a suggestion.

If the analysis is still running when you reach an issue, you will see "The analysis is still being prepared. You can decide without it." You are never blocked from deciding.

New in the final focus

Some arguments are flagged with an amber warning: this first appeared in the last speech, so the other side had no chance to answer it.

The final focus is the last speech of the round. Whatever a team says there, the other team cannot respond to. So an argument that turns up there for the first time is one that was never tested - set it aside. Most judges will not let an argument like that decide a round.

You are not blocked from voting on one. It is a strong convention rather than a numbered rule, and the call is yours. But if you find an issue like this deciding your round, that is worth a second look - and worth saying in the feedback, because it is a habit a student can fix.

Then the round

After the last issue you get a summary: which issues each team won, and which did not factor. Above the winner choice, the wizard restates the three rules that matter most at the moment you decide:

• Decide on the arguments actually made. Vote on what was said in this round - not what you believe about the topic, know from elsewhere, or think a side should have argued.
• Credit only what you could follow. You may discount a speech you could not follow, and the other team is not penalised for failing to answer it. A speech that was too fast, too garbled or too full of jargon is one you are entitled to set aside.
• Set aside arguments that were new in the final focus. The other side had no speech left to answer it, so it should not decide the round.

Then the framing question: setting aside what you already believed, did this round make the resolution more likely true, or less?

Beside them is one more line: we all carry implicit bias - check that your decision and speaker points rest on the arguments, not on accent, confidence, appearance, or who sounded more credible. It is there because implicit bias tends to work against students from traditionally marginalised groups. The same reminder appears again on the ballot; see Speaker Points for where bias is known to enter a number.

Counting issues is not the decision. A team can win three small issues and lose the one that carried the weight. You pick the winner and write your reasoning, and both are yours.

What's next?

• Making Your Decision - the wizard end to end
• After the Round - what runs between Complete Round and this screen
• Speaker Points - the other number, decided separately from the win
• Debate terms, explained - turn, frontline, extend, weigh
• What DebateFlow does during a round - what to tell a tournament that asks