AT: POLITICAL POLARIZATION

BEST STATS PROVE AND CASE STUDIES PROVE COMPULSORY VOTING DOESN’T CHECK POLARIZATION

Harris and Charlton 18 [Lachlan Harris, Australian legal affairs journalist who studied at UC Berkley, and Andrew Charlton, former Australian representative at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, and has a PhD in economics from Oxford, 4-2-2018, "The fundamental operating model of Australian politics is breaking down," Sydney Morning Herald, https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-fundamental-operating-model-of-australian-politics-is-breaking-down-20180322-p4z5o9.html ] /Triumph Debate

Is there any Australian left who hasn’t complained, or at least rolled their eyes about the state of politics in Canberra? Most of us tend to blame the politicians for all this, but a new analysis of voter data suggests a less comfortable truth. The problem is not just them. It’s also us.The fundamental operating model of Australian politics is breaking down. The data, from the Australian Election Study (AES), reveals the dramatic polarisation of Australian politics over the last two decades. In 1996 more than one in three Australian politicians (37 per cent)

rated themselves as “moderate” – that is, centre-left Liberal and centre-right Labor politicians. This share

has shrunk dramatically. At the most recent federal election in 2016 only one in 10 politicians described themselves as moderate. The AES looks at long-term trends in federal elections. It is a massive source of data , with more than 100 questions put to thousands of voters and hundreds of candidates at every election since 1987. The survey , run by the Australian National University’s School of Politics and International

Relations lifts the lid on many of the deep issues in our political system that can’t be seen in fortnightly polls or snap surveys. Polar opposites The ideological drift towards the extremes of the political landscape that the AES details is one of the causes of Australia’s broken politics. Getting legislation through the senate – and through the House in

these times of minority and bare-majority governments – requires broad, often cross-party, support. That support is easier to build when there is a critical mass of centrists in both parties who can compromise and negotiate across the aisle, with shared values as common ground. Fewer centrists makes serious reforms harder to get across the line. An obvious example is climate change

policy, where the polarisation of politics has made meaningful reform difficult for years.The AES data shows an unprecedented level of anger and frustration directed towards our politicians. More than half of all voters think politicians are out of touch – a record high in the survey’s history. Only a quarter them believe our elected leaders are doing the right thing – another all-time low.But what if our politicians are simply mirroring what they are picking up from the community? They are, after all, “representatives”, chosen from communities across the country, and their professional success depends on

responding to voters’ concerns. And voters, too, are becoming more ideologically polarised . In 1993, 54 per cent of voters surveyed by the AES described themselves as centrist. By 2016 that number had fallen to just 42 per cent. This data proves that Australian political polarisation is not just limited to the political class. In fact, we cannot understand the

polarisation in Canberra without reflecting on the polarisation in our communities.The effects of polarisation can be seen in the

rising support for increasingly ideological minor parties such as the Greens, One Nation and the Australian Conservatives.

The growth of minor party support has been well documented, but the AES data shows something new: the minor party vote has changed in quality as well as number. In 1990 less than half of all minor party voters said they “strongly support” the party they voted for. In the most recent election this had shot up to two-thirds. Remember the Democrats’

commitment to “Keeping the Bastards Honest”? Votes for minor parties were once called “protest votes”. That’s not the

case anymore, or at least not nearly so much. As the electorate becomes more ideological, those votes are being cast as firm votes for minor parties, not against the major ones. Many commentators have suggested that political disillusionment is driven by discrete groups, like working-class men or lower-income families. The AES data supports this, but only up to a point.

It’s true that 37 per cent of unskilled men are dissatisfied with politics (a record high), but dissatisfaction among the rest of the population is even higher , at 40 per cent. It’s true that minor parties are now attracting one in

four lower-income voters, but they are also winning almost exactly the same share of higher-income voters.The breadth of political

polarisation across the community suggests that its causes are deep and longstanding . People used to watch the same nightly news programs, read the same articles in a handful of newspapers. Many listened to a pastor or priest each Sunday, were members of unions, service clubs and community organisations. These forces bound the community together and helped normalise people’s views and political ideas. Not everyone had the same opinions, but there was common information from which to conduct a productive debate. Whether left, right, working class, middle class, religious or atheist, people were still hewed to common sources of information and shared values. In the

21st century, these binding forces have weakened and voters have become more disparate. Fewer people are

members of churches, unions, service and community groups. Rather than watching the evening news on TV, many Australians now get most of their news through personalised social media feeds, which can reinforce group-think among ever-

more partisan communities. The internet is the new political battleground. Political differences are being exploited by organisations that target individuals using data from Facebook, Twitter and massive email databases. Rather than

prosecuting a single public manifesto, political warfare now involves personalised messages directed at the known fears and prejudices of individual voters with unprecedented precision. Broken system

AT: Indian Elections DA

INDIAN ELECTIONS AREN’T COMPETITIVE – THE BJP WILL WIN REGARDLESS OF TURNOUT DUE TO THEIR WIDESPREAD CONTROL AND CORRUPTION

VIJ 20 [SHIVAM VIJ, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR AT THE PRINT, AN INDEPENDENT INDIAN NEWS WEBSITE, 7-17-2020, "ELECTIONS HAVE BECOME MEANINGLESS IN INDIA — THE BJP WINS EVEN WHEN IT LOSES," THE PRINT, HTTPS://THEPRINT.IN/OPINION/ELECTIONS-MEANINGLESS-IN-INDIA-BJP-WINS-EVEN-WHEN-IT-LOSES/462971/ ] /TRIUMPH DEBATE

A NEWS HEADLINE ABOUT ELECTION RESULTS IN SINGAPORE SURPRISES YOU. IT IS NOT OFTEN THAT WE THINK OF SINGAPORE AS A DEMOCRACY . SINGAPORE HAS A PARLIAMENT AND REGULAR ELECTIONS EVERY FIVE YEARS. THE ELECTIONS ARE NOT RIGGED AS IN , SAY, RUSSIA . YET THE COUNTRY’S RULING PEOPLE’S ACTION PARTY HAS BEEN IN POWER CONTINUOUSLY SINCE 1959 . EARLIER

THIS MONTH, THE PARTY WON 61 PER CENT OF THE POPULAR VOTE IN THE GENERAL ELECTION. THE MAJOR OPPOSITION PARTY WON JUST 10 OF 93 SEATS . BY ANY STANDARDS, THIS WAS A SWEEP. BUT FOR PRIME MINISTER LEE HSIEN LOONG’S PEOPLE’S ACTION PARTY (PAP), IT IS ONE OF ITS WORST PERFORMANCES EVER . FOUNDED BY LEE KUAN YEW, THE PAP PERFECTED A UNIQUE MODEL IN POWER WHERE ELECTIONS ARE FREE BUT NOT FAIR . THE ELECTION COMMISSION IS NOT INDEPENDENT , IT IS CONTROLLED BY THE GOVERNMENT . PARTIES ARE GIVEN VERY FEW DAYS TO CAMPAIGN . THE MEDIA IN SINGAPORE IS FREE,

BUT CONTROLLED BY THE GOVERNMENT . IT IS A LITTLE CRITICAL, BUT ULTIMATELY PRO-GOVERNMENT , AND SELF- CENSORSHIP IS COMMON . THEY DON’T ROCK THE BOAT IN THE WAY THAT, FOR INSTANCE, THE INDIAN MEDIA DID FOR UPA-2 BETWEEN 2011 AND 2013. THE LATEST

ONSLAUGHT ON FREE SPEECH IN SINGAPORE IS A STRINGENT FAKE NEWS LAW — THE GOVERNMENT DECIDES WHAT IS FAKE NEWS AND WHAT

IS NOT. SINGAPORE IS A MULTIPARTY DEMOCRACY BUT HISTORICALLY, WHENEVER OPPOSITION LEADERS HAVE BEEN ELECTORAL THREATS TO THE PAP , THEY HAVE FACED CASES AND ARRESTS . WHEN CONSTITUENCIES ARE REDRAWN , THE PROCESS FAVOURS THE PAP . THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM , NEUTRAL IN THEORY, IS DESIGNED TO HELP THE PAP , WITH ITS INFLUENCE OVER COURTS AND MEDIA , FREQUENT LITIGATION AGAINST OPPONENTS , VASTLY GREATER FINANCIAL MUSCLE THAN OPPONENTS, AND SO ON.

THIS SETUP SOUNDS A LOT LIKE THE INDIA OF 2020 . LIKE SINGAPORE, INDIA HAS FREE ELECTIONS , BUT WE ARE NOT SURE IF THEY CAN BE CALLED FAIR ANYMORE . IN DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM INDICES , INDIA HAS BEEN FALLING , COMING CLOSER TO SINGAPORE . THE ECONOMIST’S DEMOCRACY INDEX LISTS BOTH INDIA AND SINGAPORE IN A GROUP OF COUNTRIES IT DESCRIBES AS “FLAWED DEMOCRACIES ”. MEDIA , COURTS , ELECTION COMMISSION , TAX AGENCIES , BUREAUCRACY — ALL THESE INSTITUTIONS FAVOUR THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT IN A WAY THAT HAS NOT HAPPENED SINCE INDIRA GANDHI’S TIME. THE ‘SINGAPORE MODEL’ HAS BEEN CALLED BENEVOLENT DICTATORSHIP, “AUTHORITARIANISM WITH DEMOCRACY,” A “HYBRID SYSTEM”. SINGAPORE IS NOT CHINA, BUT IT IS NOT THE UNITED STATES EITHER. LEARNING THE WRONG LESSON FROM LEE KUAN YEW THE SINGAPORE MODEL WAS ESTABLISHED BY THE LATE LEE KUAN YEW, WHO WAS THE

CITY-STATE’S FIRST PRIME MINISTER, AND NARENDRA MODI HAS BEEN KNOWN TO BE HIS FAN. BUT PM MODI HAS SO FAR BEEN SUCCESSFUL ONLY

IN COPYING THE BAD PARTS OF THE SINGAPORE MODEL — MAKING ELECTIONS IRRELEVANT . MODI HASN’T BEEN ABLE TO DELIVER SINGAPORE-LIKE ECONOMIC GROWTH, PRODUCTIVITY, EFFICIENCY, OPPORTUNITIES OR EVEN CLEANLINESS. MANY INDIANS, ESPECIALLY MIDDLE-CLASS INDIANS, HAVE LONG ASPIRED FOR A ‘STRONG LEADER’ LIKE LEE KUAN YEW TO TURN INDIA INTO SINGAPORE. BUT IT TURNS OUT THAT OUR OWN WANNABE ‘LEE KUAN YEW’ HAS DONE AWAY WITH WHATEVER ECONOMIC GROWTH WE HAD. PERHAPS, HE SEES THE INDIA OF 2020 AS THE SINGAPORE OF 1959. THE MESSY BUSINESS OF DEMOCRACY HAS TO BE FULLY TAMED BEFORE INDIA CAN BEGIN TO PROSPER. AS PART OF THIS TAMING OF DEMOCRACY, MAKING ELECTIONS IRRELEVANT IS

KEY. THE B HARATIYA J ANATA P ARTY’S (BJP) DOMINATION OF ALL INDEPENDENT AND CONSTITUTIONAL INSTITUTIONS ENSURES THE PARTY WINS EVEN WHEN PEOPLE ARE DISENCHANTED WITH IT . YET, IF AN OPPOSITION PARTY DOES WIN A STATE ELECTION , NO PROBLEM, THE MLAS CAN BE WOOED AND BOUGHT OVER , AND A BJP GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED . IN THIS WAY, THE BJP WINS EVEN WHEN IT LOSES . DEFEAT IS ALSO VICTORY. WHEN PEOPLE ARE VOTING FOR THE CONGRESS, THEY ARE STILL VOTING FOR THE BJP , BECAUSE THE ELECTED CONGRESS MLA WILL SOON SWITCH OVER TO THE BJP FOR A FEW SUITCASES AND A MINISTERIAL BIRTH . WHICH IS WHY IT IS TIME TO STOP TAKING INDIAN ELECTIONS SERIOUSLY . THEY’RE NOW AS MEANINGLESS AS THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT’S DATA , ALWAYS FUDGED TO MAKE A BAD SITUATION LOOK GOOD . ORNAMENTAL ELECTIONS AS IN SINGAPORE, INDIAN ELECTIONS NOW SERVE THE PURPOSE OF GIVING REGULAR LEGITIMACY, ENDORSEMENT AND FEEDBACK TO THE PARTY THAT HAS ALREADY CHOSEN ITSELF FOR THE PEOPLE. SO, THE BIGGEST ECONOMIC BLUNDER IN POST-LIBERALISATION INDIA,

NAMELY DEMONETISATION, WAS LEGITIMISED BY THE BJP’S ELECTION VICTORY IN UTTAR PRADESH IN 2017. SIMILARLY, MODI’S MISMANAGEMENT OF THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC AND A POORLY PLANNED LOCKDOWN THAT GAVE IMMENSE PAIN TO MILLIONS OF MIGRANT LABOURERS, WILL BE LEGITIMISED BY A BJP-JD(U) ELECTION VICTORY IN BIHAR. EVEN IF HOLDING AN ELECTION AMID A PANDEMIC IS A BAD IDEA. WEAKENED BY ENDLESS TAX RAIDS, THE TEJASHWI

YADAV-LED RASHTRIYA JANATA DAL (RJD) IS NOT EVEN TRYING TO WIN THE ELECTION IN BIHAR, LEST THE RAIDS BEGIN AGAIN. IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT THAT THE PEOPLE OF BIHAR ARE MISLED INTO MAKING THE OPPOSITION WIN , NO PROBLEM. “OPERATION KAMAL ”

WILL BE LAUNCHED AND MLAS ‘WOOED’ . THE GOVERNOR’S OFFICE IS ANYWAY AN EXTENSION OF THE BJP OFFICE . IF NEED BE, THE PRESIDENT OF INDIA CAN BE WOKEN UP AT 5 AM.

AT: INDIAN ELECTIONS DA

COVID-19 DOESN’T FLIP INDIAN ELECTIONS – THE BJP IS RESILIENT AND IS FAVORED TO WIN

DAYAL 20 [ADITI DAYAL, JOURNALIST FOR THE DIPLOMAT XX-XX-XXXX, "HOW WILL COVID-19 IMPACT THE BJP’S ELECTORAL CHANCES?," THE DIPLOMAT, HTTPS://THEDIPLOMAT.COM/2020/05/HOW-WILL-COVID-19-IMPACT- THE-BJPS-ELECTORAL-CHANCES/ ] /TRIUMPH DEBATE

IN THESE ELECTIONS, THE GOVERNMENT WILL BE EVALUATED ON ITS RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC , THE WIDER PUBLIC HEALTH INFRASTRUCTURE, AND THE STATE OF THE INDIAN ECONOMY . WHILE THERE ARE OBVIOUS CHALLENGES TO HANDLING A PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY OF THIS SCALE, IT IS ALSO AN OPPORTUNITY THAT THE BJP SEEMS TO HAVE GRABBED WITH BOTH HANDS . IT ALLOWED THE GOVERNMENT TO PUT A LEGITIMATE END TO PROTESTS , OFTEN VIOLENT , AGAINST RELIGION-BASED AMENDMENTS TO INDIA’S CITIZENSHIP LAW . FURTHER, AN ISLAMIC CONGREGATION IN DELHI THAT EMERGED AS A CLUSTER OF COVID-19 CASES INADVERTENTLY SERVED THE PARTY’S MAJORITARIAN AGENDA BY GENERATING ANTI- MUSLIM SENTIMENT , EVEN AMONG NON-BJP SECTIONS . THE KNEE-JERK REACTION TO COVID -19 , EVIDENT IN A

NATIONWIDE LOCKDOWN WAY BEFORE THE NUMBER OF CASES IN THE COUNTRY REACHED SIGNIFICANT NUMBERS, HAS ENGENDERED POPULAR SUPPORT FOR PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI , PARTICULARLY AS INDIA’S RESPONSE HAS BEEN CONTRASTED WITH PURPORTEDLY DELAYED ACTION ON PART OF SEVERAL WESTERN COUNTRIES . THE FACT THAT THE HIGHLY CENTRALIZED RESPONSE TO THE CRISIS HAS COME AT THE COST OF A COMPLETE BY-PASSING OF THE STATES WHEN IT MATTERED HAS HARDLY RECEIVED ANY POPULAR ATTENTION. AFTER

MULTIPLE EXTENSIONS OF THE COUNTRYWIDE LOCKDOWN, THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT SEEMS TO BE SPREAD ING THE POLITICAL FALLOUT OF ITS COVID-19 STRATEGY — LIKE RISING SOCIAL UNREST AND A DETERIORATING ECONOMY — AMONG THE STATES . FOR

INSTANCE, WHILE THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT ALLOWED SPECIAL TRAINS TO RUN FOR TRANSPORTING STRANDED MIGRANT WORKERS , IT LEFT THE DETAILS UP TO THE STATES. STATE ADMINISTRATIONS, ON THEIR PART, FOUND IT HARD TO STREAMLINE THEIR TESTING AND QUARANTINE PROTOCOLS FOR MIGRANTS, AND THE POLITICIZATION OF THE ISSUE HAS SEEN BJP-RULED AND NON-BJP STATES SPARRING

AT THE COST OF MIGRANT CAUGHT IN TRANSIT. GIVING THE STATES SUCH AGENCY BELATEDLY IS LIKELY TO SHIFT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE INEVITABLY WORSENING COVID-19 SITUATION AND CONTINUING MIGRANT CRISIS ONTO THE STATES IN PUBLIC PERCEPTION . THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT , HOWEVER, WILL EMERGE LARGELY UNSCATHED . THIS IS ALSO BECAUSE THROUGHOUT THE COVID-19 PERIOD SO FAR, THE OPPOSITION , LED BY THE CONGRESS AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL , HAS LACKED ANY CONSTRUCTIVE AGENDA AND CONCRETE ACCOUNTABILITY-SEEKING FROM THE GOVERNMENT. ATTEMPTS BY POLITICAL PARTIES TO GAIN VISIBILITY OVER ISSUES RELATED TO MIGRANT WORKERS, MEASURES TO BOLSTER THE ECONOMY, AND RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC ARE LIKELY TO CONTINUE IN THE IMMEDIATE TERM. THE BEGINNINGS OF THIS TREND ARE EVIDENT IN WEST BENGAL WHERE THE BJP-LED CENTRAL GOVERNMENT HAS ALLEGED IRREGULARITIES IN THE STATE ADMINISTRATION’S HANDLING OF THE COVID-19 CRISIS. MAMATA BANERJEE, IN TURN, HAS RESISTED MOST CENTRAL

INTERVENTIONS IN THE STATE, SEEMINGLY IN A BID TO PROJECT THE IMAGE OF A STRONG, CAPABLE STATE ADMINISTRATION. GOING FORWARD, THE BJP IS LIKELY TO RETAIN THE STATES WHERE IT IS CURRENTLY IN POWER , LARGELY DUE TO THE ABSENCE OF ANY VIABLE ALTERNATIVES FROM NATIONAL AS WELL AS REGIONAL PARTIES . EVEN THOUGH COVID -19 WILL GIVE VOTERS SOMETHING NEW TO

EVALUATE THE PARTIES ON, IT IS A SHORT-TERM FACTOR AND WILL NOT DESTABILIZE THE BJP’S SUPPORT BASE , WHICH IDENTIFIES WITH THE PARTY MOSTLY BECAUSE OF IDEOLOGICAL REASONS . MOREOVER, COVID-19 WILL CHANGE THE WAY ELECTIONS ARE CONDUCTED IN THE COUNTRY. IT IS LIKELY THAT DIGITAL CAMPAIGNS WILL REPLACE LARGE RALLIES AS THE ABSENCE OF A VACCINE OR CONFIRMED TREATMENT FOR CORONAVIRUS WILL NECESSITATE A LONG PERIOD OF PHYSICAL DISTANCING AND SANITARY MEASURES.

IF PAST TRENDS ARE ANY INDICATION, THE BJP HAS A DISTINCT ADVANTAGE IN DIGITAL POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS DUE TO THE VAST FINANCIAL RESOURCES AT ITS DISPOSAL . DURING THE 2019 GENERAL ELECTIONS, THE PARTY SPENT 500 PERCENT MORE THAN ITS CLOSEST RIVAL , THE CONGRESS , IN ONLINE POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENTS .

AT: Trump Wins 2020

BETTING MARKETS AND POLLS PROVE TRUMP LOSES – CORONAVIRUS AND BLM PROTESTS WRECK HIS CHANCES

SIEMROTH 20 [CHRISTOPH SIEMROTH, LECTURER IN ECONOMICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX, 8-13-2020, "WILL TRUMP OR BIDEN WIN THE US ELECTION? THIS COULD BE A BETTER PREDICTOR THAN THE POLLS," CONVERSATION, HTTPS://THECONVERSATION.COM/WILL-TRUMP-OR-BIDEN-WIN-THE-US-ELECTION-THIS-COULD-BE-A- BETTER-PREDICTOR-THAN-THE-POLLS-143380 ] /TRIUMPH DEBATE

JOE BIDEN , THE DEMOCRATIC CHALLENGER IN NOVEMBER’S US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, HAS FINALLY PICKED HIS CANDIDATE FOR VICE PRESIDENT: KAMALA

HARRIS. HAS PICKING HARRIS , WHO IS BLACK AND ASIAN AMERICAN, IMPROVED BIDEN’S CHANCES OF WINNING THE ELECTION ? OR HAS IT ACTUALLY IMPROVED THE CHANCES OF DONALD TRUMP TO GET RE-ELECTED? DEPENDING ON WHO YOU ASK, THE ANSWER CAN VARY SIGNIFICANTLY

AND AN OBJECTIVE ANSWER IS HARD TO COME BY. POLLS OR APPROVAL RATINGS COULD HELP – THE LATEST POLL AGGREGATION PUTS BIDEN IN THE LEAD WITH 50% V ERSUS 41% FOR TRUMP WITH THE REST OF VOTERS UNDECIDED. BUT PREDICTION MARKETS , SIMPLE

FINANCIAL MARKETS WHERE THE VALUE OF THE TRADED ASSETS DEPENDS ON OUTCOMES SUCH AS WHO WINS AN ELECTION, HAVE BEEN SHOWN TO BE BETTER LONGER-TERM PREDICTORS OF ELECTION OUTCOMES . ANYONE CAN TRADE IN THESE MARKETS AND FIRMS CAN ALSO USE THEM TO INSURE AGAINST POLITICAL RISKS . SOME COMPANIES EVEN USE PREDICTION MARKETS TO FORECAST POLITICAL CHANGES , THE DEMAND FOR NEW PRODUCTS OR THE FEASIBILITY OF PROJECT DEADLINES . BIDEN’S CHANCES OF WINNING THE NOVEMBER ELECTION WERE GIVEN A BOOST ON PREDICTION MARKETS WHEN HE ANNOUNCED HARRIS AS HIS RUNNING MATE. HOW PREDICTION MARKETS WORK PREDICTION MARKETS OPERATE IN THE CURRENCY OF THE COUNTRY IN WHICH THEY ARE BASED, SAY FOR EXAMPLE US$. FOR THE US ELECTION, MARKETS TRADE A TRUMP-ASSET, WHICH PAYS OUT $1 AFTER THE ELECTION IF TRUMP WINS, AND $0 OTHERWISE. THE BIDEN-ASSET PAYS OUT $1 IF BIDEN WINS, AND $0 OTHERWISE. PREDICTION MARKETS ALWAYS PRICE THESE EVENTS BETWEEN $0 AND $1. THIS MEANS THE PRICE OF AN ASSET CAN BE INTERPRETED AS A PROBABILITY OF AN EVENT OCCURRING. SO IF THE TRUMP-ASSET TRADES AT $0.4, THEN TRUMP HAS A 40% CHANCE OF VICTORY. IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT “TRUMP IS GOING TO LOSE THE ELECTION” – IT MEANS HE IS THE UNDERDOG AND WILL PROBABLY, BUT NOT CERTAINLY, LOSE. AND THE MARKET QUANTIFIES THESE CHANCES. HOWEVER, WHATEVER THE MARKET PRICE, THE INVESTOR WILL STILL EITHER GET ONLY $1 OR $0 AFTER THE ELECTION RESULTS ARE ANNOUNCED. IF MOST TRADERS THINK AN ASSET IS OVERPRICED, BECAUSE THE PRICE EXCEEDS THE CANDIDATE’S CHANCES, THEN THEY WILL SELL AND THE MARKET PRICE WILL DROP. CONVERSELY, IF MOST TRADERS THINK AN ASSET IS UNDERPRICED, THEY WILL BUY AND

THE PRICE INCREASES. SO, THE MARKET PRICES ARE A PREDICTION OF THE ELECTION OUTCOME BASED ON THE WISDOM OF CROWDS , A CONSENSUS FORECAST THAT TENDS TO BE BETTER THAN THE FORECAST OF SINGLE EXPERTS . WE KNOW THAT PREDICTION MARKET PRICE S MATCH THE UNDERLYING PROBABILITIES BECAUSE EMPIRICAL AND LAB RESEARCH HAS LOOKED AT THOUSANDS OF SUCH MARKET PREDICTIONS , GROUPED ALL WITH A PRICE OF $0.4 TOGETHER , AND FOUND THAT THE PREDICTED EVENT UNDERLYING THE ASSET , FOR EXAMPLE, THE ELECTION OF A PARTICULAR CANDIDATE, DID INDEED OCCUR IN 40% OF THESE CASES . SIMILARLY, FOR PRICES OF $0.5 , THE UNDERLYING EVENT OCCURRED IN 50% OF CASES , AND SO ON . THE

PRICES ARE WELL-CALIBRATED AS PROBABILITY FORECASTS . TRUMP’S CHANCES THE BIGGEST PREDICTION MARKET ABOUT THE US ELECTION , WHICH IS BASED IN NEW ZEALAND, PREDICTS A 41% CHANCE OF TRUMP WINNING THE ELECTION, AND BIDEN IS A STRONG FAVOURITE AT 59%. ON AUGUST 11, THE DAY OF THE HARRIS VP ANNOUNCEMENT , BIDEN’S CHANCES JUMPED BY TWO PERCENT AGE POINTS WHILE TRUMP’S DROPPED BY TWO . THE MARKET CLEARLY THINKS HARRIS WAS A GOOD CHOICE AND INCREASED BIDEN’S CHANCES OF WINNING THE ELECTION. THIS DAY WAS ALSO THE DAY WITH THE HIGHEST TRADING VOLUME IN THE PAST FEW MONTHS, MAKING IT ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE CAMPAIGN . BEFORE THAT,

THE PRICE GRAPH SHOWS THAT TRUMP’S CHANCES SLIPPED CONSIDERABLY IN JUNE. IN EARLY MAY, THE MARKET STILL VIEWED

TRUMP AS THE FAVOURITE, WITH BIDEN NOT IMPRESSING DURING THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY RACE. BUT SINCE THE DUAL CRISIS OF THE COVID -19 PANDEMIC AND B LACK L IVES M ATTER PROTESTS (INCLUDING TRUMP’S REACTIONS TO THEM ) BECAME THE MAIN ISSUES IN US POLITICS , TRUMP HAS BEEN LOSING GROUND STEADILY, AND BIDEN OVERTOOK HIM AS FAVOURITE. WHICH EVENTS LED TO THIS

REVERSAL? ON MAY 28, TRUMP THREATENED TO BRING IN THE NATIONAL GUARD TO CONFRONT BLACK LIVES MATTER PROTESTERS,

USING THE WIDELY CRITICISED “WHEN THE LOOTING STARTS , THE SHOOTING STARTS ” QUOTE , PROMPTING TWITTER TO FLAG THE TWEET AS “GLORIFYING VIOLENCE ”. ON JUNE 1, PROTESTERS WERE DISPERSED BY FORCE SO THAT TRUMP COULD WALK TO A CHURCH FOR A PHOTO-OP . PRICES AT THAT TIME SHOW THAT WITHIN JUST A FEW DAYS, TRUMP LOST ABOUT FIVE

PERCENT AGE POINTS WHILE BIDEN GAINED FIVE , CHANGING THE DIFFERENCE BY TEN PERCENT AGE POINTS IN FAVOUR OF THE

CHALLENGER. COVID NEWS ALSO HAD A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT . ON JUNE 24-25, TRUMP LOST ANOTHER FOUR PERCENT AGE

POINTS, WIDENING THE GAP TO BIDEN BY EIGHT . DURING THESE TWO DAYS, ANTHONY FAUCI , DIRECTOR OF THE US NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF

ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES TESTIFIED THAT THE US HAS A “DISTURBING ” SURGE IN NEW CASES , SHOWING THE US WAS NOT DEALING WELL WITH THE CRISIS . IN LATE JULY, TRUMP RECOVERED A FEW PERCENTAGE POINTS AS ATTENTION SHIFTED SLIGHTLY TO HIS ANTI-CHINA RHETORIC AND THE SALE OF CHINESE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM TIKTOK.

AT: MINORITY REPRESENTATION

COVID-19 MEANS MANY MINORITY VOTERS WILL BE EFFECTIVELY DISENFRANCHISED DUE TO MAIL-IN BALLOTS

Timm 20 [Jane C. Timm, 8-9-2020, "A white person and a Black person vote by mail in the same state. Whose ballot is more likely to be rejected?," NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/white-person-black-person-vote-mail-same-state-whose-ballot-n1234126] /Triumph Debate

MAIL VOTING WORKS BETTER FOR OLDER, WHITE VOTERS IN A PANDEMIC, VOTING BY MAIL APPEARS AN OBVIOUS CHOICE TO SIMULTANEOUSLY PRESERVE ACCESS TO THE POLLS AND PUBLIC HEALTH. WESTERN STATES SUCH AS CALIFORNIA, OREGON AND COLORADO HAVE BEEN DOING IT FOR YEARS, BUT IN

PRACTICE ACROSS THE COUNTRY, VOTING BY MAIL — MOST COMMONLY KNOWN AS ABSENTEE VOTING — DISPROPORTIONATELY BENEFITS CERTAIN GROUPS OF VOTERS . OLDER , WHITE VOTERS ARE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE LIKELY TO VOTE BY MAIL AND HAVE THOSE

BALLOTS COUNTED , STUDIES SHOW , WHILE VOTERS OF COLOR AND YOUNGER VOTERS ARE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE LIKELY TO HAVE THEIR BALLOTS REJECTED . “NOBODY HAS CLOSELY SCRUTINIZED THE FAIRNESS OF ABSENTEE VOTING RULES BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE WEREN’T VOTING BY MAIL BALLOT AND MOST PEOPLE HAVE REASONABLE, ALTERNATIVE VOTING METHODS WITHOUT RISKING

THEIR LIVES,” WEISER SAID. DANIEL A. SMITH , A POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA , HAS BEEN EXAMINING THE EFFECTS OF MAIL ELECTION REGULATIONS THIS YEAR. IN APRIL, HE CO-PUBLISHED A PAPER REPORTING THAT HISPANIC AND BLACK VOTERS WERE MORE THAN TWICE AS LIKELY TO HAVE THEIR BALLOT REJECTED AS WHITE VOTERS IN FLORIDA’S 2018 GENERAL ELECTION . IN MAY, HE CO-PUBLISHED A REVIEW OF GEORGIA’S 2018 MIDTERM ELECTION DATA THAT

FOUND A SIMILAR PATTERN OF REJECTION FOR VOTERS OF COLOR . FOR EXAMPLE, IN GWINNETT COUNTY , THE SECOND MOST-

POPULOUS COUNTY IN GEORGIA, SOME 4 PERCENT OF WHITE VOTERS’ ABSENTEE BALLOTS WERE REJECTED , WHILE 8 PERCENT OF BLACK VOTERS’ ABSENTEE BALLOTS WERE REJECTED . WE’RE IN A CRAZY WORLD WHERE THERE’S THIS TRADE-OFF BETWEEN OUR HEALTH

AND OUR VOTE. I UNDERSTAND COMPLETELY WHY PEOPLE WANT TO VOTE BY MAIL — IT'S BY FAR THE SAFEST METHOD OF VOTING. BUT IT’S ONE THAT’S

NOT COSTLESS ,” HE SAID. SMITH SAID HE PLANS TO VOTE IN PERSON IN NOVEMBER. “I’LL DON MY PPE,” HE SAID, REFERRING TO PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT. THE U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION ESTIMATES THE NATIONAL AVERAGE ABSENTEE BALLOT REJECTION IS 1.4 PERCENT, WHILE STATES THAT VOTE IN ALL-MAIL ELECTIONS HAVE RATES LOWER THAN 1 PERCENT. BUT IN PRIMARY RACES DURING THE PANDEMIC SO FAR, STATES AND COUNTIES ARE SEEING HIGHER THAN NORMAL ABSENTEE BALLOT REJECTION RATES. IN NEW YORK CITY, 21 PERCENT OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WERE REJECTED, ACCORDING TO

CITY ELECTION DATA. SMITH’S RESEARCH — WHICH IS ONGOING — HAS FOUND THAT PEOPLE OF COLOR , YOUNGER VOTERS AND THOSE WHO HAVE

NEVER VOTED BY MAIL ARE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE LIKELY TO HAVE THEIR BALLOTS REJECTED , AND THAT THE INCONSISTENT REJECTION RATES WITHIN STATES SUGGEST INSTITUTIONAL ISSUES ARE TO BLAME , NOT VOTER ERROR . “YOU HAVE SOME

COUNTIES WHERE THE REJECTION RATES FOR YOUNGER VOTERS OR BLACK VOTERS IS UPWARDS OF 4 PERCENT ,” HE SAID OF HIS

RESEARCH IN FLORIDA, WHERE HE LIVES. “YOU HAVE OTHER JURISDICTIONS WHERE IT’S ONE-TENTH OF 1 PERCENT. VOTERS DO NOT BECOME MORE INTELLIGENT OR LESS INTELLIGENT ABOUT HOW TO VOTE A BALLOT MOVING ACROSS A COUNTY LINE . THERE ARE INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS IN PLAY .” THE MOST COMMON REASON BALLOTS ARE REJECTED IS THAT THEY ARRIVE LATE . MAIL SERVICE IS LESS RELIABLE IN LOWER-INCOME COMMUNITIES , AND MANY NATIVE AMERICAN RESERVATIONS DO NOT HAVE HOME DELIVERY ADDRESSES USED FOR MAIL VOTING. THE PANDEMIC HAS STRESSED MAIL SERVICE ACROSS THE BOARD,

AND AMID THE FISCAL CRISIS, THE U .S . P OSTAL S ERVICE HAS ORDERED RECENT CHANGES THAT ARE EXPECTED TO SLOW THE MAIL SERVICE . ANOTHER FACTOR? STAMPS. BY LAW , 17 STATES COVER VOTERS’ RETURN POSTAGE , WHILE THE MAJORITY OF STATES DO NOT . SOME STATES, INCLUDING PENNSYLVANIA, HAVE DECIDED TO FOOT THE BILL FOR POSTAGE FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. BUT THERE ARE INCONSISTENCIES WITHIN STATES, TOO. IN FLORIDA AND MICHIGAN, SOME COUNTIES HAVE SAID THEY’LL PAY FOR POSTAGE, WHILE VOTERS ELSEWHERE MUST FIND THEIR OWN STAMPS.

AT: PRISONER’S RIGHTS

COMPULSORY VOTING LEADS TO INCARCERATION AND DISENFRANCHISEMENT DUE TO THE INABILITY TO PAY FOR NON-COMPLIANCE

Lever 9 [Annabelle Lever, associate professor of Normative Political Theory at the University of Geneva, “Is Compulsory Voting Justified?,” Public Reason, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/95079.pdf ] /Triumph Debate

Proponents of compulsory voting tend to say that the penalties for non-voting are, typically, no higher than a

relatively low fine. According to Ballinger, “High penalties are often thought not to be appropriate: such penalties disproportionately affect the poor, and can lead to heavy costs on an electoral commission” (Ballinger 2006, 11). But even where that is true, it is important to realise

that people can, and do, go to prison for failing to pay fines, and that this is the case, as well, for those who fail to pay fines for non-voting . For example, in 1999 Melissa Manson was sentenced to one day in prison for failing to pay the

fines incurred by her failure to vote in the 1993 and 1996 Federal elections. Manson, apparently, believed that there were no candidates worth voting for, and therefore objected both to voting, and to paying the resulting fine, on principle (Hill 2007, 6 – 7 and 17).

Before holding that compulsory voting is justified, therefore, we need to be prepared to make criminals of people who do not pay their fines for not voting – and need to be confident that doing so is consistent with the democratic values and objectives that animate this case for compulsion.23 The penalties for not voting in many democracies are fairly slight and the striking thing about countries such as Australia and Belgium is that people still vote although in Belgium fines are rarely enforced, and in

Australia, excuses for not voting seem to be readily accepted.24 But that does not mean that all penalties are low. In Italy, non-voters

originally had their cards of good conduct marked and people feared that they would lose their chances of civil employment if they did not vote at the many different elections and referenda that were required. Likewise, in Belgium , the

penalties on paper are quite severe, although rarely enforced. In principle, failure to vote four or more times within a 15

year period will lead to exclusion from the electoral register for 10 years and, if one is a civil servant, it will also

mean disqualification from the chance of promotion (Gratschew 2004, 27-29). Even now, apparently, people in Italy can be denied places at state childcare facilities , under what is misleadingly called “the innocuous sanction”.25 For those whose employment depends on state-funded childcare of various sorts, the mere threat of losing a place would be far more alarming than the prospect of even a hefty fine. What seems like a trivial penalty to some people, then, is a very grave threat to others; and there is nothing about compulsory voting that means the penalties for non-voting must be trivial. Step Four: The Right Not to Vote is Not a Trivial One

AT: PRISONER’S RIGHTS

AUSTRALIA PROVES THAT THE AFF ISN’T UNIVERSAL ENFRANCHISEMENT – THEY DISENFRANCHISE VOTERS, INCLUDING PRISONERS

SLNSW 19 [State Library of New South Wales, 4-18-2019, "Who can vote," State Library of New South Wales, https://legalanswers.sl.nsw.gov.au/hot-topics-voting-and-elections/who-can-vote ] /Triumph Debate

To vote in local, state, territory or federal elections in Australia, people must be registered on the relevant electoral roll. The different jurisdictions in Australia ’s federation – the states, territories and Commonwealth – can each grant the franchise to different types of people and can maintain their own electoral rolls . There is a high degree of consensus as to who should have the franchise in Australia. While there has been some recent debate around prisoners’ voting rights and lowering the voting age, the states, territories and Commonwealth basically give the same types of people the right to vote. This was

not always the case. The Commonwealth franchise In federal elections, the vast majority of Australian citizens who are 18 years and over have the franchise. So do most British subjects who are not Australian citizens but who were on the electoral roll on

25 January 1984. The exceptions are those otherwise eligible who : are of unsound mind ; are serving prison sentences of three years or more ; have been convicted of treason and not pardoned ; are not specially registered as ‘itinerant voters’ and have not have not lived at an address for one month ; and are living overseas long term and with no intent ion of returning to Australia. At the 2016 Federal Election 15,676,659 people were enrolled and 14,406,706 voted in the House of Representatives election – a turnout of 91%. State and territories

AT: INEQUALITY / US = OLIGARCHY

LATIN AMERICA PROVES COMPULSORY VOTING DOESN’T STOP INEQUALITY AND IS POLITICALLY UNPOPULAR

Marato and Dosek 18 [María Marta Maroto, visiting fellow for Harvard’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Phd candidate at the Universidad Católica de Chile with a MA in political science from Torcuato Di Tella University, and Tomáš Došek, professor of political science at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile with a PhD in political science from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 12-2018, “Mandatory Voting and Redistributive Income Policies: Re-Examining Lijphart’s Argument with Matching,” Reis, http://www.reis.cis.es/REIS/PDF/REIS_164_06_ENG1531383170750.pdf ] /Triumph Debate

Conclusions Based on the experience of Latin American countries, where compulsory voting is common along with high levels of income inequality, an alternative hypothesis was suggested – to be tested in future research: in countries

where the linkage between politicians and voters from socioeconomically disadvantaged strata is of a clientelist nature, greater electoral participation by these sectors does not necessarily mean a better representation of their material interests; that

is, if the electoral linkage is not largely programmatic (as Lijphart implicitly assumes), the logic of the resulting political behaviour does not follow Lijphart’s assumption. Voters do not demand redistributive policies from their representatives, and elected politicians are not held accountable by their constituencies in terms of the achieved programmatic policies. This is because the clientelist linkage is based on a type of exchange that generally takes place outside the scope of public policy. In the future, the role of clientelism, the type of redistributive policies, the timing of the introduction of the type of

vote15 and the way lower income sectors are mobilised must all be examined in greater depth. In practical terms, the introduction of c ompulsory v oting in times like the present – with increasing disaffection with politics – does not seem to be welcomed by citizens. A study carried out in Chile showed that more than three quarters of the population supported the v oluntary v ote before the CV was eliminated (Aránguiz, 2008). In addition, the implementation of

these types of reforms can be difficult given the need to introduce fines or punishments (strong enforcement) to ensure compliance. This could be politically costly for reformers , given the widespread disaffection of voters with political parties and politics in general16. Moreover, in recent decades practically no country has introduced c ompulsory v oting (IDEA, 2016). Instead, CV laws have been reversed: Guatemala in 1990 , Italy in 1993, Venezuela in 1999 and more recently, Chile in 2012 . With respect to countries that have introduced compulsory voting or

have considered this option, Fiji did so in 1992, but then definitively abandoned it in 2014 (it was in force until 2006), and in Colombia a reform to establish CV was proposed but was rejected by the Congress in 2014. Lastly, this analysis suggests that given its unpopularity, its political and operational costs, its uncertain results and the persistence of structural problems, in contexts of institutional weakness the incorporation of mandatory voting does not seem to be the most effective instrument to achieve a better redistribution of income .

AT: POLITICAL POLARIZATION

EU DEMOCRACY IS SYSTEMATICALLY COLLAPSING DUE TO LOW TURNOUT AND FUELING POPULISM – THAT THREATENS EU STABILITY AND TRADE. COMPULSORY VOTING ENSURES TURNOUT THAT CHECKS HIGH EXTREMIST TURNOUT AND DEPOLARIZES POLITICS

Leterme and Staak 19 [Yves Leterme, secretary-general of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) with a Bachelors of Science in Political science from Ghent University, former Minister of Foreign Affairs for Belgium, and Sam van der Staak, head of International IDEA's Europe programme with an MA in IR from University of the Witwatersrand, 5-22-2019, "Voter turnout will decide Europe's fate," EUobserver, https://euobserver.com/opinion/144947] /Triumph Debate

European voter turnout is in deep crisis . Since the early 2000s, the share of voters in national elections has fallen to 66 percent on average , which means that the birthplace of democracy now ranks below average globally. The situation is even worse in Eu ropean Parliament elections : i n 2014 , turnout was 42 .6 percent , almost 20 points below what it was in 1979. Only in countries with c ompulsory v oting , such as Belgium and Luxembourg, has turnout remained high. Despite all the attention paid to climate marches and other youth-led

political movements, a new cohort of young voters is unlikely to change this trend . In the last European

elections, 72 percent of voters below the age of 24 abstained. Among Finns, that rate was 90 percent;

among Slovaks it was 94 percent. According to opinion polls, only 21 percent of youth declare they are very likely to vote in this week's European Parliament election. There was a time when European voter-turnout trends

didn't particularly matter. European politicians cared more about their own share of the electoral pie than its overall size. And because the mainstream parties were all close to the political centre, voter abstention at the extremes affected them all about the same. But now that populist partie s have made gains by offer ing disaffected voters a new home , the calculus has changed. Current polling indicates that populist partie s will capture around 23 percent of the total vote in the coming election, but some surveys point to more substantial gains. If a united bloc of populists were to win 33 percent of parliament ary seats , it could block sanctions against Poland or Hungary, paralyse EU budget negotiations , and scupper international trade deals. The difference will hinge on voter turnout at the margins. Populist forces can reach the critical 33 percent threshold if they succeed in mobilis ing their voters and turnout for mainstream parties is weak.

Such an outcome cannot be ruled out. In the United Kingdom, a recent YouGov poll found that lower turnout at the centre and high turnout at the extremes could put anti-Europe crusader Nigel Farage's new Brexit Party in first place. And in Finland's election last month, the anti-immigrant Finns Party finished second after several high-profile rape cases involving immigrants

boosted turnout among disgruntled voters who usually stay home. With the emergence of online filter bubbles,

campaigning across political divides has become more difficult than ever. Rather than competing for a single pool of voters, political parties are now fishing in separate ponds. For mainstream parties, then, mobilising the base is much more important than chipping away at the competition. Yet, by the same token, populists have recognised that suppressing the vote would benefit them. Micro-targeting Already, they have latched onto three powerful

instruments of voter dissuasion. The first is digital micro-targeting. By collecting or purchasing large voter data sets,

campaigns can segment the electorate into strategic clusters using complex algorithms, and then deliver personalised online content to the most susceptible voters. Micro-targeting has proved most effective not at

winning over undecided voters, but at dissuading people from voting altogether. There is strong evidence to suggest that Donald

Trump's micro-targeting operation in the 2016 US presidential election played a decisive role in the key states that he needed to win the Electoral College.

AT: POLITICAL POLARIZATION

LOW EU TURNOUT HARMS EU CREDIBILITY AND UNITY

Malkopoulou 9 [Anthoula Malkopoulou, Associate Professor in Political Theory at Lund University specialized in democratic theory with a PhD in Political Thought from the University of Jyväskylä, 7-2009, “Lost Voters: Participation in EU elections and the case for compulsory voting,” Center for European Policy Studies, https://www.ceps.eu/ceps-publications/lost-voters-participation-eu-elections-and-case-compulsory-voting/] /Triumph Debate

Participation in the EU elections has been constantly decreasing from 62% in 1979 to 43% in 2009 . In the seven direct elections to the European Parliament so far, the turnout has fallen by an average of 3% each time , the largest drop occurring in the 1999 elections (7%). Of course, voter abstention is a common phenomenon in many

countries around the world, more so in Western Europe, the USA, Canada and Japan. In the past, some electoral scholars (MorrisJones, 1954)

have argued that a low turnout is not necessarily a bad thing. It might even be considered as an indication of voter satisfaction

and trust in the established system. This view, however, is rather out of step with the growing demand for participatory democracy in today’s world. As far as the EU elections are concerned , there are two basic reasons why turnout matters.

First, abstention from the polls notably diminishes the legitimacy of the electoral process , of the European

Parliament itself and of the European Union as a whole. In this way, the vision of consolidating the Union as a democratic project that culminated in direct suffrage to the Parliament in 1979 is undermined. Especially so since the EU’s internal application of democratic standards is being challenged on another front these days, namely the questionable procedures of adopting the EU Treaty of Lisbon, with referenda being repeated until the results are satisfactory. Even though Europe does not share a common culture of

direct democracy and there are different views on the levels of EU representation, this disharmony has affected the sense of

political equality in the EU. As a result, an increasing divide opens up between Eu rope’s democratic ideals and its less democratic reality, in which the concepts of representation , majority and equal empowerment are distorted. These ideas lie at the heart of Eu ropean history and political culture , and have generated stability, trust and social peace.

AT: POLITICAL POLARIZATION

MANDATORY VOTING BOOSTS EU TURNOUT, UNIFIES EU MEMBERS, AND STOPS POPULISM

Malkopoulou 9 [Anthoula Malkopoulou, Associate Professor in Political Theory at Lund University specialized in democratic theory with a PhD in Political Thought from the University of Jyväskylä, 7-2009, “Lost Voters: Participation in EU elections and the case for compulsory voting,” Center for European Policy Studies, https://www.ceps.eu/ceps-publications/lost-voters-participation-eu-elections-and-case-compulsory-voting/] /Triumph Debate

Nevertheless, there are three main reasons why mandatory voting is a particularly appropriate solution for the European

Parliament elections. First, as the Parliament struggles to acquire a stronger role vis-à-vis the Commission and the Council, it should protect its raison d’être as an institution that represents the EU citizens . Making voting compulsory would boost the turnout and allow the Parliament to lay claim to an ’input legitimacy’ that is missing from the two other EU institutions . In response to the increase of its powers through the

Lisbon Treaty, it must become very clear that the Parliament is the most representative of the three EU governing

institutions. It must therefore adopt a more inclusive character and reflect a fair share of the EU population . Second, this solution would recreate the EU electorate as a unified political body and add new dimensions to EU citizenship. Full participation in the EU elections would raise political debates from a national to a

European level. In this way, it would distract voters from the narrow national context and elevate them into a

European public sphere. Electoral obligation could lead to an increased awareness and interest in European

issues and, as a result, create a distinct EU-mindedness. In other words, compelling citizens to vote could work as a costless civic education measure. And, as a side-effect, it would eliminate the expense of election promotion and raise voter awareness. A third positive effect would be a harmonisation of the political landscape.

First of all, with the present system of v oluntary v oting , political parties that maintain electoral clienteles , through family or community ties, have a competitive advantage in the electoral contest. In this way the existing situation rewards clientelism and supports the ‘old parties’. Secondly, since the electoral outcome currently

depends on the eagerness to vote, which is usually high er in the extreme wings of the political spectrum,

technically it is no surprise that far-right euro-sceptic parties are on the rise in the European Parliament. As stated

above, low turnouts distort the concept of majority and offer an advantage to parties that would otherwise constitute an insignificant minority . The new system would eventually minimise the influence of extreme right parties and legitimate the shares between the different political groups. In fact, the European

Parliament deserves a higher degree of procedural representation in order to avoid becoming hostage to eccentric political views. The prevailing political culture to some extent explains why the European Parliament has so far never discussed the option of mandatory voting, neither in a plenary session nor in the Constitutional Affairs Committee. Normally, amending electoral rights would require an intergovernmental conference, like the one preceding the Maastricht Treaty, which made it possible for EU citizens to vote in all member states of the EU. Under the Treaty of Lisbon, the Council can decide on a new treaty without having to resort to a formal IGC (TEC, Art.25). What is more, if at least nine states agree, the procedure for enhanced cooperation could be used to amend political rights. Thirdly, under another new provision of the Lisbon Treaty, changes to the political rights of EU citizens – albeit non-binding – can be also initiated by a citizens’ proposal to the Commission (TEU, Art.11). Finally, states can always make a bilateral reciprocal adaptation of electoral rights, such as those that already exist between the UK, Ireland, Malta and Cyprus, and which does not interfere with the official scope of European Union citizenship.

AT: FEMALE REPRESENTATION

THE AFF KILLS REPRESENTATION FOR FEMALES – COMPULSORY VOTING LEADS TO MORE MALE POLITICIAN VOTES

Wauters and Devroe 17 [Bram Wauters associate professor of Political Sciences at Ghent University, and Robin Devroe senior researcher of Political Sciences at Ghent University with a master's degree in Political Sciences, 11-01-2017, “Forced to vote, but not for women. The effect of compulsory voting on voting for women,” Springer, https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8536092/file/8536093.pdf ] /Triumph Debate

Conclusion The presence of women in parliaments (and factors influencing this) has been high on the research agenda for several decades. We focused on the provision of c ompulsory v oting , a specific institutional variable that has often been overlooked when analysing the effects of electoral rules on women’s representation. While it could be argued that

compulsory voting is beneficial for the formal representation of socially disadvantaged groups, including women, its effect

on the descriptive representation of women remained underexposed. In a cross-country analysis on the macro level , Studlar and McAlister (2002) found a negative effect , but no theoretical explanations were given. It was our aim to search for these explanations and to consider their actual role in influencing women’s descriptive representation, using data from the 2014 PartiRep Election

Study in Belgium. We posit that voters who would no longer vote without compulsory voting are less politically sophisticated, which leads to two possible explanations for the lower number of votes for women. The first is that potential non-voters also vote less sophisticatedly (more list and head-of-list voting), which is a disad vantage for women, because often they are less likely than men to be on top of the ballot . Potential non-voters often lack the skills and attitudes needed to cast a sophisticated vote . These expectations are confirmed by our

results: non-voters vote significantly more for top candidates (who are more likely to be men) and give significantly less preference votes to candidates lower down the list (this is especially true for ballots that combine votes for both men and women). The less frequent vote for women by potential non-voters is caused by the fact that these kinds of voters do not really ‘choose’ candidates, but follow the figureheads (mostly men) put forward by the party. Second, we pointed to differences in voter attitudes about the political role of women. We

hypothesised that voters with low levels of political sophistication are less convinced about the political role of women, and precisely these kinds of voters are also more likely to abstain if compulsory voting is lifted. We found, however, no clear evidence for this explanation. Our results demonstrate that the effect of compulsory voting on voting for women runs mainly through the sophistication of the vote, and not so much through the gender ideology of (potential) non-voters. The effect of compulsory voting on voting for women remains significant when we control for gender ideology. Our findings have three further implications

AT: ELECTION DAY -> WEEKEND

TURNOUT ISN’T BOOSTED BY SHIFTING ELECTION DAY

Nwanevu 16 [Osita Nwanevu, Slate staff writer and the New Republic with a Master of Public Policy from the University of Chicago, 11-3-2016, "Making Election Day a Holiday Might Hurt More Working-Class Voters Than It Helps," Slate Magazine, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/11/an-election-day-holiday-might-not-increase-turnout-studies-demonstrate.html ] /Triumph Debate

These disparities are brought further into relief by the latest election holiday campaign. In late July, venture capitalist Hunter Walk launched Take Off Election Day, an effort aimed at convincing companies to voluntarily give their employees Election Day off. As of Tuesday, the list of the 326 companies that have pledged to do so is dominated by tech, consulting, and finance firms. The Wall Street Journal reported that executives at Casper, a tech-savvy mattress retailer, consider the voting holiday “a workplace perk, ‘a natural next step’ after free meals and generous benefits.” Even if Walk succeeds in having an Election Day holiday join in-office massage and pet-friendly workplaces as a standard

Silicon Valley perk, it’s not at all clear how many workers would actually use the day to vote. Low turnout is a complicated problem and some of the more obvious seeming remedies haven’t really worked. For instance, moving Election Day to a weekend,

which would also remove work as an obstacle for many, is commonly supported on the grounds that most countries with weekend voting have higher turnout rates than the U.S. But an analysis of voter turnout in democracies since 1945 determined that while countries with weekend voting do tend to have higher turnout than the U.S., adopting weekend voting hasn’t actually increased turnout within countries that have it . For what it’s worth, America’s turnout rate in 2012—53.6 percent of the voting -age population—was roughly the same or higher than recent

turnout rates in a few countries with weekend voting including Poland (53.8 percent in 2015) and Japan (52

percent in 2014). Switzerland, despite weekend voting, the mail ing of ballots to all citizens, and the availability of online voting in some jurisdictions, has the lowest voter turnout rate in the developed world —38.6

percent. For many there and elsewhere, election weekend is just another weekend. Similarly, there’s nothing that would stop voters here from treating a Democracy Day like just another day off.

AT: EDU / LOCAL ELECTIONS

CLIMATE EDUCATION FAILS – LOBBYING, PUSHBACK, AND LACK OF RESOURCES AND TIME

Preston 19 [Caroline Preston, Harvard archivist and graduate of Dartmouth and Brown, 7-7-2019, "The US teachers trying to teach climate change despite Trump," Independent, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-paris-climate-change-agreement-schools-environment-education-a8992216.html ] /Triumph Debate

Ms Lau, 42, has taught science for seven years at Piedmont Intermediate School, which is housed in an airy, modern building overlooking a wheat field and serves predominantly middle-class families, many of whom work in the oil and gas industry. For much of that

time, she has sought to acquaint students with the basics of the planet's warming. On this next-to-last week of the school year, she was squeezing in a lesson exploring the link between increased carbon emissions and extreme weather events such as floods and hurricanes. A goal was to give students the knowledge to debunk the argument often made by climate change deniers that a few frigid days disprove climate change; even in a warming climate, there will still be many cold days. Schools across the United States are wrestling with how to incorporate the study of climate change into the classroom as its proximity and perils grow ever more apparent. According to a recent NPR/Ipsos poll, 86 per cent of teachers and more than 80 per cent of parents say the

subject should be taught in school. But survey results in 2016 showed that while three-quarters of science teachers said they

included lessons about climate change, they devoted little time to it and faced an array of obstacles .The science behind climate change is complicated and evolving , and most teachers aren't prepared to teach it well . Many textbooks don't touch the topic, according to science educators. "Climate and earth sciences more generally have been historically neglected in American science education," said Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National

Centre for Science Education, which tracks anti-science education legislation and develops curriculums like the one Ms Lau was teaching. "Lots

of teachers feel they don't have the content knowledge or pedagogical know-how to teach climate change effectively." And then there are the politics, especially in ruby-red Oklahoma. Educators here say they occasionally receive questions and pushback from parents when classes cover climate change . A state agency funded by the oil and gas industry pumps money into teacher training and classroom material s , including books featuring a

cartoon character called Petro Pete, with the goal of promoting fossil fuels. And state lawmakers routinely introduce bills that critics say would encourage teachers to spread misinfo rmation on evolution and climate change. "Every year, we have to fight one or two bills," Ms Lau said. But she added that even here in Oklahoma, there's a growing hunger for accurate information on climate change: "I don't get the resistance I got at the beginning of my career because it's getting harder and harder to deny." Wearing a denim jacket with an "I teach climate change" button, Ms Lau showed her students a video that used a discussion of sports doping to explain the probability aspects of climate change. Steroids can make it easier for players to hit home runs, the video explained. But it's impossible to know if any single home run is due to doping. So to assess the effects of the drugs, one has to observe a player's performance over time. Same with climate change: Some extreme weather events occur regardless of whether humans are pumping extra carbon into the

atmosphere. Scientists can determine if these emissions are affecting the climate only by following patterns over time. As they scooted out of the classroom on the first day of Ms Lau's two-day lesson, a few of the sixth-graders said this was the first they had heard of c limate c hange . Others said they knew a little about it. "The greenhouse gas gets trapped in our

atmosphere and it's melting ice caps," explained Jewel Horn, who said she'd learned about the topic previously in science class. She said she didn't worry or talk about the topic much: "It's not that big of a problem unless we do nothing." In teaching about climate change, Ms Lau says she is fortunate to have support from her school's administration. She has also learned how to choose her

words carefully, especially given that so many people in the state (including members of her family) earn a living from carbon-intensive industries such as farming and oil and gas. "I tell my students, just because your parents are currently working for Devon or Chesapeake, what they are doing every day is not bad and evil," she said, mentioning two of the big Oklahoma-based energy companies. "It's just that overall, we need to start looking for other directions." Teaching about climate change got a boost six years ago with the release of the Next Generation Science Standards, which instruct teachers to introduce students to climate change and its human causes beginning in middle school. To date, 20 states plus the District of Columbia have adopted the standards, and many other states have embraced a modified version. All told, 37 states and the District recognise human-caused climate change in their science standards, says the National Centre for Science

Education. Oklahoma's standards are based on the Next Generation Science Standards, but while they discuss human effects on the

environment, they do not directly attribute climate change to human activities. Even so, some state legislators called the

language on climate science "one-sided." And just because something is in the standards doesn't mean it's being taught universally , or effectively, especially given that textbooks take time to be updated .

AT: EDU / LOCAL ELECTIONS

EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT IS DECKED FROM CORONAVIRUS –

Soland et al. 20 [Jim Soland, Research Scientist at Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) with a PhD in Educational Psychology at Stanford, currently teaching at the University of Virginia, Megan Kuhfeld, Research Scientist at NWEA, Beth Tarasawa, Executive VP for Research at NWEA Research Scientist at NWEA, Angela Johnson, Research Scientist at NWEA, Erik Ruzek, Research assistant professor at the University of Virginia and Research Scientist at NWEA, and Jing Liu, Postdoctoral Research Associate at Brown, 5-27-2020, "The impact of COVID-19 on student achievement and what it may mean for educators," Brookings, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2020/05/27/the-impact-of-covid-19-on-student-achievement-and-what-it-may-mean-for-educators/ ] /Triumph Debate

Virtually all K-12 students in the United States are currently missing face-to-face instruction due to COVID-19 . Many parents and educators thus share a common worry: When the pandemic subsides, kids will return to school with low er achievement . There are also concerns that the gap between high - and low-achieving students will become larger. Given the need to address these concerns, we decided to use prior test scores from millions of students

and leverage research on summer learning patterns to make informed projections of what learning loss due to the pandemic might look like. Ultimately, we wanted to know: What sort of learning losses could we expect from the shortened 2019-20 school

year? Answering this question is complicated by the unique circumstances of COVID-19. Current school closures have added to the time that most students already spend at home during the summer months without explicit face-to-face instruction from teachers. Meanwhile, teachers are scrambling to adapt content for an online platform and

parents are juggling work responsibilities (if not joblessness) with caring for and educating their own

children. Students themselves are faced with isolation, anxiety about a deadly virus, and uncertainty about the future. In so many ways, the current situation is unprecedented for most people alive today. Yet there are parallels between the current

situation and other reasons students miss school that can give us insight into how COVID-19 may affect achievement. This includes research on the effects of out-of-school time on learning due to absenteeism , weather-related school closures (e.g.,

Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans), and summer vacation. Existing evidence can provide a rough sense of how time out of school

due to COVID-19 will affect achievement. We relied heavily on past precedent when trying to understand how COVID-19 might impact achievement in the short and medium term. We used a national sample of over 5 million students in grades 3-8 who took MAP Growth assessments in 2017-2018. These assessments enable such

estimates because MAP Growth is administered multiple times per year, which means test scores are available in fall, winter, and spring such that changes in achievement during the year can be understood and anticipated. We compared typical growth for students who completed a standard-length school year to projections under multiple scenarios.

These scenarios were directly informed by out-of-school-time research. The results are deeply concerning. The two figures below

show projected math and reading learning patterns from the beginning of the 2019-20 school year (before COVID-19 school

closures) through the start of the 2020-21 school year. The solid lines represent average trajectories in a typical year with typical growth (estimated based on a prior year’s data) followed by normal patterns of learning loss over the summer (generally, student achievement/learning tends to decline during the summer, though this varies greatly by student). Next, we assume an extended summer loss would occur during the period since schools closed. We refer to this scenario as the “COVID Slide” (represented by the dotted lines). These projections give a sense of how much learning students could lose, though we hope they will be overestimations of loss, given the online

instruction and home schooling occurring. These preliminary COVID Slide estimates suggest students could begin fall 2020

with roughly 70% of the learning gains in reading from the prior year relative to a typical school year . In mathematics, students may show even smaller learning gains from the previous year, return ing with less than 50% of the gains. In lower grades, students may be nearly a full year behind in math compared to what we would observe in normal conditions. Though not shown in the figures, we produced similar estimates of learning loss based on research showing the

effect of being absent on achievement. That is, we simply assumed students’ learning during COVID-19 school closures would be akin to what

occurs when students miss school, a large assumption given the online learning and homeschooling now occurring. Results for absenteeism-based projections were often more dire. We also examined how much more variable achievement might be in the fall—that is, how wide the range in achievement might be between very high and very low-performing students. This range

has implications for whether teachers can provide similar content to all students in their classrooms , or

if they might need to further differentiate instruction based on a broader range of needs. The above figures show our estimate of that variability by subject for 4th and 6th grade. The shaded areas display the spread in potential outcomes between students who were in the 25th percentile of summer learning loss (who showed steep declines) and those in the 75th percentile (who showed flat lines

or even small gains during the summer). In mathematics, we see a fair amount of variability in learning rates, though the majority of students show losses over the extended closure and summer period . However, in reading, there is an even wider spread of potential outcomes , with students who are in the 75th percentile and above showing sizable learning

gains during the summer. Further, the figure below shows that extended time out of school may lead to more variability in achievement when students return in the fall relative to a typical year. A wider range of learning needs like

the ones suggested by the figure could create greater challenges for teachers. The New York Times warns that today’s

students could be the “COVID generation.” As we think through our road to recovery, we hope education leaders consider our projections among many data points when preparing to support students returning in the fall. Specifically, our results indicate that: Students may be substantially behind, especially in mathematics. Thus, teachers of different grade levels may wish to coordinate in order to determine where to start instruction. Educators will also need to find ways to assess students early, either formally or informally, to understand exactly where students are academically. Students are likely to enter school with more variability in their academic skills than under normal circumstances. Therefore, educators may need to consider ways to further differentiate instruction or provide opportunities for individualized

learning. Students who lose the most during the summer tend to gain the most when back in school , but

this may not hold for COVID -19 . Regardless, the ground that students have to make up during the 2020-21 academic

year will probably be greater due to COVID-19. Therefore, educators may want to work with students to determine growth rates needed to catch up and set learning goals for the year that are ambitious but obtainable. Finally, the effects of COVID-19 our study cannot

examine may be the ones most worthy of addressing. Prior research on students displaced by Hurricane Katrina indicated that they had difficulty concentrating and often manifested symptoms of depression in the months

following the hurricane. Understanding these impacts and how best to support students’ social and emotional needs after the huge

disruption of COVID-19 will be essential. Many students may face greater food insecurity , loss of family income , loss of family members to the coronavirus , and fear of catching the virus themselves .

AT: VOTING INCENTIVES

CASH INCENTIVES CHEAPEN THE CIVIC DUTY OF VOTING AND CAUSES MORE UNINFORMED VOTERS

BRANSTETTER 15 [BEN BRANSTETTER, WRITER AT SALON, 11-8-2015, "WHY WE CAN'T JUST PAY PEOPLE TO VOTE," THE WEEK, HTTPS://THEWEEK.COM/ARTICLES/586623/WHY-CANT-JUST-PAY-PEOPLE-VOTE ] /TRIUMPH DEBATE

SO IF WE AGREE LOW VOTER TURNOUT IS A PROBLEM THAT SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT WON'T SOLVE ON ITS OWN AND THERE'S A RELATIVELY EFFECTIVE WAY

TO INCREASE IT, WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? AS THE LOS ANGELES TIMES NOTED WHEN THE COUNCIL BEGAN CONSIDERING THE LOTTERY, PAY ING PEOPLE TO VOTE REMOVES WHAT SHOULD BE THE INHERENT INCENTIVE OF VOTING — TAKING PART IN CIVIC GOVERNMENT TO

CHANGE YOUR WORLD FOR THE BETTER. "THIS GIMMICK PERVERTS THE MOTIVATION TO VOTE ," WROTE THE TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD,

ARGUING THE CASH PRIZE "ONLY UNDERSCORES THE CYNICAL VIEW THAT PEOPLE DON'T CARE ABOUT THEIR LOCAL

GOVERNMENT ANYMORE AND THE ONLY WAY TO GET THEM TO VOTE IS TO BRIBE THEM ." CASH INCENTIVES CHEAPEN VOTING — A FORM OF PARTICIPATION THAT'S JUST ONE FACET OF ENCOURAGING AN ACTIVE CITIZENRY . THE OTHER PART, WHETHER PEOPLE LIKE IT OR NOT, IS ACTUALLY KNOWING WHAT YOU'RE VOTING FOR. IN THE INTERNET ERA, BEING AN INFORMED DIGITAL CITIZEN IS EASIER THAN IT HAS EVER BEEN IN THE HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY. VOTERS TODAY HAVE UNPRECEDENTED ACCESS TO POLITICIANS, BUDGETS, AND DATA THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA. CANDIDATES POST CLEARLY WRITTEN PROPOSALS AND ISSUE PAPERS ON THEIR WEBSITES. "EXPLAINERS" ON A VARIETY OF ISSUES HAVE BECOME AN OFFICIAL PART OF INTERNET POLITICAL CULTURE. YOU CAN EVEN TAKE A BUZZFEED QUIZ TO FIND OUT WHICH CANDIDATE MOST ALIGNS WITH YOUR OWN VALUES. YET AMERICAN VOTERS CONTINUE TO LACK KEY POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE, ESPECIALLY ON A LOCAL LEVEL. A PEW RESEARCH CENTER SURVEY FOUND THAT MOST RESPONDENTS WERE UNABLE TO IDENTIFY WHICH PARTY HOLDS THE HOUSE OR SENATE, OR CORRECTLY NAME THE NUMBER OF FEMALE SUPREME COURT JUSTICES ON THE BENCH. A THIRD OF AMERICANS CAN'T NAME THE RIGHTS GUARANTEED THEM BY THE FIRST AMENDMENT, ACCORDING TO A

DIFFERENT STUDY; THE SAME NUMBER COULDN'T NAME THE YEAR IN WHICH SEPT. 11 OCCURRED. RATHER THAN GETTING INFORMED ON THE ISSUES, WHAT A CASH INCENTIVE ENCOURAGES IS WHAT POLITICAL SCIENTISTS HAVE TERMED "LOW -INFO RMATION VOTING ." ETHICIST AND

GEORGETOWN PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY JASON BRENNAN THINKS UNINFORMED VOTING NOT ONLY DAMAGES OUR

DEMOCRACY BUT IS ACTIVELY IMMORAL . "AS SOON AS YOU STEP IN THE VOTING BOOTH , YOU ACQUIRE A DUTY TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING ," WRITES BRENNAN IN HIS BOOK, THE ETHICS OF VOTING. "IT'S FINE TO BE IGNORANT , MISINFORMED , OR IRRATIONAL ABOUT POLITICS , SO LONG AS YOU DON'T IMPOSE YOUR POLITICAL PREFERENCES UPON OTHERS USING THE COERCIVE POWER OF GOVERNMENT ."

AT: INDIAN ELECTIONS DA

HINDU NATIONALISM IS INEV REGARDLESS OF BJP CONTROL – RECENT ELECTIONS PROVE

Ali 20 [Asim Ali, NYT writer based in New Delhi, 2-12-2020, "Modi Lost in Delhi. It Doesn’t Matter.," NYT, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/opinion/delhi-election-modi.html] /Triumph Debate

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party suffered a major defeat in elections for the Delhi state legislature. Amit Shah, the prime minister’s confidante and the country’s home minister, led a highly divisive and sectarian campaign foregrounding Hindu nationalism and demonizing the city’s Muslims, and tried to paint the opposition Aam Aadmi Party and its leaders as treasonous. Yet out of Delhi’s 70 seats, Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah’s B.J.P. won a mere eight seats, and the A.A.P., led by Arvind Kejriwal, who has been the chief minister of Delhi since 2015, won 62. Mr. Kejriwal, an anti-graft activist turned politician, focused the electoral campaign of his party on his record of governance — the significant improvement he made to the delivery of services in public hospitals, the quality of education and infrastructure in schools, and the cost of electricity in Delhi. Delhi chose Mr. Kejriwal for his performance as chief minister. While the B.J.P. plastered Mr. Modi’s face across the city, it did not offer any candidates for the Delhi state government who were more impressive or convincing than Mr. Kejriwal

and his team. Mr. Modi and his party might have lost an election but they won the ideological battle by set ting the terms of electoral politics : For electoral success in India , it is no longer acceptable to speak about equal citizenship and political rights of India’s Muslims or speak out against the violence and hostility they encounter. The election in Delhi was held while India has been witnessing continuous protests against a citizenship law passed by Mr. Modi’s government in December that makes religion the basis for citizenship. The new law discriminates against Muslims and advances the Hindu nationalist agenda of reshaping India into a majoritarian Hindu nation. Mr. Shah, the home minister, had insisted the citizenship law would be followed by a National Register of Citizens, or N.R.C.,

which would require citizens to submit a set of documents to prove they are Indians . India’s Muslims and

liberals worried that the citizenship register would become a tool to exclude or threaten to exclude Indian Muslims from citizenship. Over the past two months, protests against the citizenship law and the impending N.R.C. spread across the country, from university campuses to poor Muslim neighborhoods, from distant border states to starry avenues of Bollywood. On Dec. 15,

the police in Delhi , which reports to Mr. Modi’s government, violently attacked students at Jamia Millia Islamia, a

university with a large number of Muslim students . After the police assault, women from Shaheen Bagh, a working-class, mostly Muslim neighborhood adjacent to university, gathered in protest against the citizenship law and blocked a major road passing through the area. A tent was set up on the road and the protest quickly took on the air of a defiant carnival. The numbers swelled and every kind of Indian opposed to the citizenship law gathered at Shaheen Bagh in solidarity. Two bitter winter months have passed; the women continue their

protest despite the cold and the attacks by Hindu nationalist activists. Throughout the Delhi election campaign, Mr. Modi ’s party targeted Shaheen Bagh and sought to frighten the city’s Hindus by emphasizing the Muslim-ness of the protesters. Islamophobic rhetoric has been normalized in Mr. Modi’s India, but the Delhi campaign intensified it. Mr. Shah, who is also the president of the B.J.P., set the tone when he asked his supporters to push the button against the B.J.P. electoral symbol on the electronic voting machines so hard that the (mostly

Muslim) protesters in Shaheen Bagh would “feel the current.” At a Delhi election rally, Anurag Thakur, Mr. Shah’s colleague and India’s minister of state for finance, raised a sinister slogan: “These traitors of the nation!

Shoot them!” A few days later, two Hindu nationalist activists opened fire on students and protesters at Jamia Millia

Islamia and in Shaheen Bagh. Parvesh Varma, a member of the Parliament from Mr. Modi’s party, sought to whip up Hindu fears by describing the Shaheen Bagh protesters as murderers and rapists: “They will enter your houses, rape your sisters

and daughters, and kill them. There is time today. Modi Ji and Amit Shah won’t come to save you tomorrow.” Other leaders from the party likened Shaheen Bagh to Pakistan and framed the Delhi election as a contest between India and Pakistan. Mr. Kejriwal spoke against the citizenship law, calling it a distraction from Mr. Modi’s failure on the economy, but assiduously

avoided confronting the Hindu nationalist rhetoric during the elections and ignored the attacks on Muslims. When the police entered Jamia Milia Islamia and attacked the students, Mr. Kejriwal stayed silent for several days . When asked about the protests in Delhi, he declared that he would have cleared the road through Shaheen Bagh in two hours if the police in Delhi, which reports to

the federal government, were under his control. To emphasize his being a Hindu, Mr. Kejriwal publicly sang Hindu religious prayers and visited a temple soon after his victory speech. Essentially, he worked around the boundaries set by the Hindu nationalists and embraced a softer version of their politics . The Delhi election

suggests that India has entered an era where the ideological terms and the language of politics are set by the Hindu nationalists . To be electorally competitive, political parties will need to adhere to some variant of the Hindu nationalism and jingoism exemplified by Mr. Modi. The “Modi consensus” has ensured that India’s Muslims are not only politically powerless but also politically invisible. Seventy-three years after independence, India’s Muslims are still fighting for equal citizenship. We are now putting our lives on the line, not to gain parity in jobs and education but to hold on to legal equality. The protests against the new citizenship law have the air of a final cry to salvage our dignity

before we are made second-class citizens, or worse, noncitizens. In an election, while most citizens vote for material benefits and

aspirations, India’s Muslims are reduced to voting for their security. Despite Mr. Kejriwal and his A.A.P.’s

sidestepping the issues concerning Muslims, Delhi’s Muslims overwhelmingly backed his party because it is not actively hostile to them. To interpret defeat of Mr. Modi’s party in Delhi with his project of Hindu majoritarianism would be a grave misreading of the verdict. In a recent survey, four-fifths of Delhi’s voters favored Mr. Modi and three-fourths of Delhi’s voters expressed satisfaction with his federal government . It is unclear whether Mr. Kejriwal’s model of good governance and service delivery while ignoring the contentious sectarian and

militant nationalist positions of the Hindu nationalists can be replicated outside the relatively small, urban state of Delhi. Since its inception, the Hindu nationalist movement, of which the B.J.P. is the electoral branch, had a single goal: Hindu supremacy. There are no politicians who have the gumption to challenge Mr. Modi and his B.J.P. on that

central vision. Mr. Modi and his party might lose the occasional election but they have won the ideological war.

AT: INDIAN ELECTIONS DA

THEIR PANDEY AND VENKATESH EVIDENCE IS AN AFF CARD – COMPULSORY VOTING INCREASES DEMOCRATIC CREDIBILITY AND SUPPORT FOR LEFTIST POLICY – IT ALSO ONLY ASSUMES A MARGINAL INCREASE IN TURNOUT WHICH ISN’T THE END GAME OF THE AFF - TRIUMPH IS GREEN

Pandey and Venkatesh 18 [Raghav Pande, assistant professor of Law at Maharashtra National Law University and Kumar Venkatesh corporate lawyer based in London, 12-16-2018, “Compulsory voting in India will boost credibility of results; make democracy more inclusive, vibrant and representative”, Firstpost, https://www.firstpost.com/india/compulsory-voting-in-india-will-boost-credibility-of-results-make-democracy-more-inclusive-vibrant-and-representative-5738561.html ] /Triumph Debate

***Aadhaar: rough Indian equivalent of a social security number

India’s 2014 general election was the largest democratic event in the history of mankind, just by the sheer size of the electorate. A total of 814 million people were eligible to vote in the election. However, of these, only 66 .4 percent actually voted. On the face of it, this seems like a decent number. But given the numbers, that means 273 .5 million eligible voters did not vote . To put this into perspective, this figure is more than the entire population of Brazil and Indonesia (the 4th and 5th most populated countries in the world), respectively. One hundred and eight countries had a higher voting percent age than India. A dismal rank, as highlighted in the table below: [chart of countries omitted] One could argue that a percentage wise list might in some cases not be a relevant (or fair) reference benchmark to evaluate India’s performance, simply because the numbers of electorate is significantly lower in most of these countries. Therefore, the chart below indicates a list of top 30 countries, with largest voter registrations and their voter turnouts. Here too, it can be clearly seen that although India lies in the

median range, there is massive scope for improvement. Countries with similar socio-economic conditions such as Brazil, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Argentina performed much better than India. The larger point being that there is a huge section of the Indian population, which can and should vote, but doesn’t exercise its right. When you convert the percentages into numbers , they put into question the very legitimacy of elections , and by

implication, of democracy, in India.

[Their card begins]

In most elections in India (Assembly polls), it is safe to presume that the winning party gets around 40 percent of the total votes cast. In Lok Sabha elections, the percentage goes down further, to around 30 to 35 percent. In the last elections, the BJP won 282 seats, while clocking a 31.4 percent vote share. Now, imagine there’s a 10% increase in voter turnout (meaning around 81.4 million more people voting). This can potentially change the whole landscape. It has been

traditionally argued elsewhere that rural India polls more percentage than urban India. Hence, there exists a larger scope for increase of voter turnout in urban areas than rural areas. Customarily, India’s urban areas have had a higher preference for the BJP. The recent Assembly elections have not been an exception. There is direct evidence that urban India votes less, but prefers the BJP . Hence, the direct beneficiary of a higher voter turnout , especially in urban areas, is naturally the BJP . Maybe this could have played a crucial part in the cliffhanger of a contest in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

[their card ends]

An obvious electoral strategy for the BJP should be increasing voter turnout. Australia has set the example by making voting compulsory. Failure to vote in Australia can attract a fine of up to $50. In addition, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil and a host of other countries enforce some form of

compulsory voting. There are arguments that such a move could result in “donkey-voting”, a practice where voters (who

do not have any voting preferences) turn-up and vote at random, mostly for the anyone which appears first on the ballot paper/machine. This argument is based on the assumption that most non-voters are either disinterested or simpletons incapable of

reason. The essence of any democracy is to treat its electorate as mature and aware , and therefore this

(speculative) argument holds little water. Others argue that compulsory voting will result in people having to forcefully

choose political sides when they have consciously decided not to. A valid concern, but which has already been addressed through NOTA. Critics argue, perhaps rightly so, that voting is a natural right of liberty which includes the freedom to not vote, and therefore no one can be compelled to vote. Admittedly, this does put a spanner in any plans to introduce compulsory voting in India, especially in the current climate of rampant judicial activism. However, what the government can do is incentivise voting through mechanisms such as

nominal income tax credits, rebates or subsidies. The Election Commission has plans to link Aadhaar (already linked with

PAN) with voter ID cards, which would make for a smooth implementation from an operational perspective. Given that the middle class, which is the conventional voter base of the BJP, is also the tax paying class, such a move will also

make a lot of political sense for the BJP. Before critics of BJP accuse it of using Machiavellian tactics, they will perhaps be happy to learn that studies have shown that c ompulsory v oting has resulted in an increased support of leftist policies. There is a robust case to shed the status-quo and to take proactive steps to increase India’s voter turnout, not only to lend credibility to election results but also in order to make India’s democracy more inclusive, vibrant and truly representative.

AT: INDIAN ELECTIONS DA

DEMOCRACY MINIMIZES THE GROWTH OF TERRORISM

Puddington 15 [Arch Puddington, a Distinguished Fellow for Democracy Studies at Freedom House with a BA in English literature from the University of Missouri, 1-13-2015, “Democracy Is the Best Defense Against Terrorism” Freedom House, freedomhouse.org/blog/democracy-best-defense-against-terrorism] /Triumph Debate

***START: Study of Terrorism And Responses to Terrorism

The data for both charts are drawn from the authoritative project START, the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, based at the University of Maryland. The consortium offers statistics on the number of terrorist attacks per country as well as the number of fatalities from such attacks. We broke these figures down according to Freedom in the World designations to determine the

percentage of attacks and deaths in Free, Partly Free, and Not Free countries. The results strengthen the argument that w hile terror ism poses a threat to democratic and nondemocratic societies alike, it is apparently able to flourish only in dictatorships, states with authoritarian- leaning regimes , and settings that suffer from weak or corrupt government. To take note of this is not in any way to minimize the tragedy, or the importance, of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Indeed, the killings in France are shocking precisely because terrorist incidents of this magnitude are so unusual in democracies. Furthermore, the murder of the cartoonists and editors was meant to send a message to the whole world: Cross certain red lines, and the same thing can happen to you.

But. the Paris killings took place in a global environment in which horrible massacres unfold on an almost daily basis Late last week, nearly 20 people were killed in a bombing in Yemen. Mass killings in northern Nigeria are by now practically commonplace; some estimates put the death toll from the latest spate of Boko Haram attacks at 2,000, with girls as young as 10 being forced to serve as suicide bombers. There are also chilling reports of Islamic State loyalists kidnapping Christians in Egypt. In Pakistan, a school has just

reopened several weeks after nearly 150 children were gunned down by terrorists. As last week’s blog put it: “For evidence that authoritarian states create an enabling environment for terrori sm, one has only to look at the location and origins of the major terrorist groups active today. The I slamic S tate , for example, metastasized amid the Syrian dictatorship’s war with opposition rebels and the sectarian divisions sown by increasingly authoritarian Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. An affiliate of the group has emerged in Egypt , where coup leader Abdel Fattah el- Sisi is cracking down on all forms of dissent . And Boko Haram has radicalized and expanded its reach amid extrajudicial killings and other ineffective tactics by the corruption-plagued Nigeria n security forces. Given this reality, the most effective way for democracies to combat terror ism at home over the long term may be to foster democratic governance abroad.”

AT: INDIAN ELECTIONS DA

THE BJP SYSTEMATICALLY SUPPRESSES HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF VOTES – EMPIRICS FROM GUJARAT PROVE COMPULSORY VOTING DOES NOTHING TO STOP THEM – IT ALSO PROVES INDIA ISN’T DEMOCRATIC WHICH SKIRTS THEIR OFFENSE

Shankar 19 [Soumya Shankar, reporter for electoral politics and social movements with a South Asia focus, teaches journalism at Stony Brook University in New York, 04-09-2019, “Millions of Voters Are Missing in India.” https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/09/millions-of-voters-are-missing-in-india/ ] /Triumph Debate

On March 16, the Election Commission of India denied him a voter ID for a second time—on the grounds that he was under 18 years old. Multani, a Muslim born in 1991, is one among what may be millions of Indian citizen s who will lose their vote in the upcoming elections on wrongful grounds . Multani’s case was identified by Missing Voters, a phone application created in May 2018 to enumerate and enroll disenfranchised voters across the country. Since its inception, the Missing Voters app has recorded over 80,000 downloads on Android and 5,000 on iOS—and resulted in 40,000 people being registered to vote. Its creator, the 38-year-old software engineer Khalid Saifullah, estimates that nearly 120 million eligible voters could be missing from voter lists, nearly 70 million of whom could be Muslims and Dalits. The mass disenfranchisement of minority and vulnerable groups is bound to raise doubts over the legitimacy of the upcoming gargantuan polls, in which nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking another term.

Voter suppression is commonly discussed in the United States, but in India the discourse has barely begun. In

the United States, the tactics used range from creating minor voting hurdles to selectively purging entire categories of voters from the rolls. “In today’s charged atmosphere of communal polarization and the fact that political parties use a lot of money, they can bribe election officials instead of seeking votes through a campaign ,” said

S.Y. Quraishi, the former chief election commissioner of India. “Anything is possible. You could simply delete a whole chunk of voters.” In India, according to new studies, voter suppression appears to chiefly target Muslims,

who make up around 13 percent of the population and are frequent targets of Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and Dalits, the lowest group in the caste system. In the Gujarat state elections of 2017,

the BJP won by a margin of just 258 votes in Godhra—the site of riots in 2002 that left nearly 1,000 people, mostly Muslim,

dead. A simple analytics tool created by Saifullah found that thousands of Muslim voters were missing from the state’s voter lists. Following the Gujarat elections, Saifullah and his team of 17 researchers conducted a mammoth voter enrollment drive during the 2018 state elections in Karnataka, a large, populous, and relatively rich state. Upon matching census data with

voter lists, they found the names of nearly 1.5 million Muslim voters were missing . Census figures indicate less than 5 percent of households nationally have just one registered voter , since most Indian households have several adults. Saifullah’s team tallied single-voter households from the census data against updated voter lists released by the Election Commission and found that the number stood at 10 percent nationally. By using common surnames, they discovered that the

numbers were even higher among Muslims and Dalits —a whopping 17 percent of all such households had merely one voter each, suggesting that other voters in those households had either never been enrolled or have been deleted from the current records. Saifullah matched his missing voters’ data with on-the-ground surveys conducted by partner nongovernmental organizations in 10 assembly constituencies spread across the states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Uttarakhand.

Volunteers associated with the NGOs found numerous instances where people had valid voting cards and had cast their vote

in the previous elections but whose names were deleted from this year’s rolls. Saifullah projects his findings across 800 assembly

constituencies to claim that a total of 120 million voters could be missing nationally , with the problem concentrated most heavily in states with less political awareness and poorer literacy .

AT: COURT CLOG DA

CORONAVIRUS CAUSED MORE CASES AND DELAYED CASES BECAUSE OF A PREFERENCE FOR IN-PERSON TRIALS AND THE BACKLOG – ALSO, NO LINK SINCE COURTS WON’T DEAL WITH RELATIVELY TRIVIAL MATTERS

Miller and Gaspard 20 [Hugo Miller, writer on the EUCHR and law, and Gaspard Sebag, writer for Bloomberg, 5-26-2020, "Virus backlog clogs court dockets around the world," Stars and Stripes, https://www.stripes.com/news/us/virus-backlog-clogs-court-dockets-around-the-world-1.631243 ] /Triumph Debate

Courts reopening around the globe are confront ing a backlog of thousands of cases , including UBS Groups $4.9 billion tax-evasion penalty, former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes's alleged fraud and even the 2016 Brussels terrorist attacks that killed 32

people. The volume of cases shelved as courthouses were shuttered in response to the coronavirus pandemic

may take months, possibly years, to work through. Many courts are adopting measures to help clear dockets, whether

simply drop ping minor matters , throwing more judges at the issue, or plea-bargaining cases that might otherwise have gone to trial.

Stay-at-home orders imposed across Europe and the U.S. forced judges , lawyers and prosecutors to turn to technology to try to keep the wheels of justice turning. But the use of Zoom and other video conferencing have not kept courts moving at their pre-virus pace, not least because many parties still want live hearings and are willing to argue for them . "Not only were decisions not being rendered during the lockdown, but

proceedings weren't advancing, so it's going to take a very long time before things go back to normal," said

Stephane Bonifassi, a white-collar criminal lawyer in Paris. "We're looking at one year and that's frightening." About 400 scheduled criminal cases a week were postponed in the French capital during the lockdown, leaving a backlog of 3,200 cases, chief Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz told a French parliamentary commission earlier this month.

The civil case overload is greater still at around 6,000, according to Stéphane Noël, the president of the Paris Court of First Instance. On April 27, U.K. civil, family and criminal courts held 4,066 hearings , mostly by video or phone.

That's less than half the pre-virus daily average, Chris Philp, justice minister, said in a May 4 video briefing. That means

the backlog of criminal cases in England and Wales , which stood at 37,434 at the end of 2019, is likely to have grown considerably during the outbreak. The Justice Ministry has said it plans to add more shifts for judges to help address the

issue. In New York , the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak and home to one of the busiest court systems in the world, the numbers are even more staggering. State courts there have managed to resolve by settlement or plea bargain some 13,000 cases

since mid-April using phone and video hearings. But that's still a drop in the bucket for New York, which usually handles

around 3.5 million new criminal and civil cases each year. Parties are still often loath to conduct a case 's big moments remotely . Federal prosecutors in Manhattan recently opposed a video sentencing for Bryan Cohen, a former

Goldman Sachs investment banker who pleaded guilty in January to insider trading, arguing that the "ends of sentencing are best served when all parties and the court are able to interact and engage in-person" and asking for a delay until the courthouse resumed normal operations. But the judge said Cohen would be sentenced by video on June 4. "Delaying every sentencing would multiply the existing backlog of cases in the federal court system and generate a deluge of hearings once in-person proceedings can safely resume," he said. Bonifassi said the shutdown was also forcing lawyers in France to adjust longstanding approaches. "Though it's the French system to always go to trial, we will have to adopt more of a plea-bargaining approach to cases" to work through the

backlog, he said. "This crisis should be a wakeup call." To deal with Paris's backlog, Heitz said prosecutors would drop about a third of the least serious cases , while another third will be dealt with through simplified proceedings or plea agreements. Some jury trials, usually reserved in France for the most violent crimes, may now be decided by judges. Delays have hit many of the highest-profile cases. The fraud trial of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the once high-flying blood-testing startup Theranos, has been pushed to Oct. 26 from its original July 28 date. The case is closely watched in

Silicon Valley where, before the company unraveled due to alleged fraud, it attracted the backing of some of the leading venture capital firms and achieved a valuation of $9 billion. One of the U.K.'s biggest trials to be delayed is an $800 million shareholder suit against Tesco. The hearing into fraudulent accounting at the supermarket giant has been moved from June to October, according to a spokeswoman for the

lawyers behind the case. Some matters that have already gone on for years may now wait at least another year before moving forward.

AT: HEGEMONY IMPACT

HEGEMONIC DECLINE IS INEVITABLE - CORONAVIRUS, CHINA RISE, AND TRUMP

Cooley and Nexon 20 [Alexander Cooley, Professor of Political Science at Barnard College and Director of Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, and Daniel H. Nexon, Associate Professor in the Department of Government and at Georgetown, 06-09-2020, "How Hegemony Ends," Foreign Affairs; https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-06-09/how-hegemony-ends ] /Triumph Debate

CONSERVING THE U.S. SYSTEM Great-power contestation, the end of the West’s monopoly on patronage , and the emergence of movements that oppose the liberal international system have all altered the global order over which Washington has presided since the end of the Cold War. In many respects, the COVID -19 pandemic

seems to be further accelerating the erosion of U.S. hegemony. China has increased its influence in the World Health Organization and other global institutions in the wake of the Trump administration’s attempts to defund and scapegoat the public health body. Beijing and Moscow are portraying themselves as providers of emergency goods and medical supplies , including to European countries such as Italy, Serbia,

and Spain, and even to the United States. Illiberal governments worldwide are using the pandemic as cover for restricting media freedom and cracking down on political opposition and civil society. Although the United

States still enjoys military supremacy , that dimension of U.S. dominance is especially ill suited to deal with this global crisis and its ripple effects. Even if the core of the U.S. hegemonic system—which consists

mostly of long-standing Asian and European allies and rests on norms and institutions developed during the Cold War—remains robust , and even if, as many champions of the liberal order suggest will happen, the United States and the European Union can leverage their

combined economic and military might to their advantage, the fact is that Washington will have to get used to an increasingly contested and complex international order . There is no easy fix for this . No amount of military spending can reverse the processes driving the unraveling of U.S. hegemony . Even if Joe Biden, the

presumptive Democratic nominee, knocks out Trump in the presidential election later this year, or if the Republican Party repudiates

Trumpism, the disintegration will continue . The key questions now concern how far the unraveling will spread. Will core allies decouple from the U.S. hegemonic system? How long, and to what extent, can the United States maintain financial and monetary dominance? The most favorable outcome will require a clear repudiation of Trumpism in the United States and a commitment to rebuild liberal democratic institutions in the core. At both the domestic and the international level, such efforts will necessitate alliances among

center-right, center-left, and progressive political parties and networks. What U.S. policymakers can do is plan for the world after global hegemony . If they help preserve the core of the American system, U.S. officials can ensure that the United States leads the strongest military and economic coalition in a world of multiple centers of power, rather than finding itself on the losing side of most contests over the shape of the new international order. To this end, the United States should reinvigorate the beleaguered and understaffed State Department, rebuilding and more effectively using its diplomatic resources. Smart statecraft will allow a great power to navigate a world

defined by competing interests and shifting alliances. The U nited S tates lacks both the will and the resources to consistently outbid China and other emerging powers for the allegiance of governments . It will be impossible to secure the commitment of some countries to U.S. visions of international order . Many of those governments have come to view the U.S.-led order as a threat to their autonomy , if not their survival.

And some governments that still welcome a U.S.-led liberal order now contend with populist and other illiberal movement s that oppose it. Even at the peak of the unipolar moment, Washington did not always get its way . Now, for the U.S. political and economic model to retain considerable appeal, the United States has to first get its own house in order. China will face its own obstacles in producing an alternative system; Beijing may irk partners and clients with its pressure tactics and its opaque and often corrupt deals. A reinvigorated U.S. foreign policy apparatus should be able to exercise significant influence on

international order even in the absence of global hegemony. But to succeed , Washington must recognize that the world

no longer resembles the historically anomalous period of the 1990s and the first decade of this century. The unipolar moment has passed , and it isn’t coming back.

AT: VOTING LOTTERY

PERM – DO THE COUNTERPLAN – IT SHIELDS THE LINK TO POLITICS AND BOOSTS TURNOUT – AT WORST, COMPULSORY VOTING ALONE SOLVES BETTER

Duffy and Matros 14 [John Duffy, Professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh with a PhD in economics from UCLA, and Alexander Matros, Professor of economics at the University of South Carolina, 2014, “On the Use of Fines and Lottery Prizes to Increase Voter Turnout,” Economics Bulletin, http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~duffy/papers/EB-14-V34-I2-P89.pdf] /Triumph Debate

We have explored conditions under which three mechanisms intended to affect voter turnout can implement a full participation equilibrium.

The difficulty with the lottery prize only mechanism is that the size of lottery prize needed to ensure full participation must increase with the size of the electorate and the financing of this fixed prize is left unspecified. From a social welfare perspective, fine -based mechanisms including our fine - financed prize mechanism dominate the prize-only mechanism as under the fine-based mechanisms , there is no need to fund the prize (funding is endogenous) and in any full participation equilibrium the threatened fines are never levied (and no prize is awarded). The latter observation helps us understand why lottery prize mechanisms, while

much discussed as a means of increasing voter turnout, have rarely been implemented. By contrast, implementation of fine-based mechanisms requires only information about the cost of voting or on the upper bound of the distribution of voting costs, and such mechanisms are commonly used in a number of countries. Indeed, fines for non-participation in countries with compulsory voting laws are generally low — see Table 1 — and in most cases would seem to roughly approximate the cost (opportunity and other costs) associated with the act of voting — the minimal fine needed

for full participation in our Propositions 1 and 3.We believe that the new fine - financing lottery mechanism we propose in this

paper is an attractive option for political reasons as our mechanism is explicit about where the money to

finance a lottery prize comes from and how fine revenues get spent even though in any full participation equilibrium no fines would actually be collected and therefore the value of the endogenously determined lottery prize would be zero. Our paper serves to highlight a difference between “threats” and “promises” (in the terminology of Schelling

(1960)). The threat of a fine for non-participation , if successful, does not have to be carried out while the promise of a prize for voting , if successful, has to be kept, and in the case of lottery prizes alone , that promise is costly ; hence the benefit of our fine-financing lottery prize scheme.

AT: TRUMP WINS 2020

NO CORONAVIRUS VACCINE WILL COME OUT BEFORE THE ELECTION AND IT WON’T SWING THE ELECTION

Vergano and Goba 20 [Dan Vergano, BuzzFeed Reporter and Kadia Goba, BuzzFeed Reporter, 8-1-2020, "It Will Be Very Difficult For Trump To Rush A Vaccine Before The Election, Even If He Tries," BuzzFeed News, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danvergano/trump-vaccine-election-november ] /Triumph Debate

There’s growing concern among health experts and Democrats that President Donald Trump will rush a potentially faulty

coronavirus vaccine before the election to save his presidency. But it’s highly unlikely even the bare minimum of clinical trial data from the administration’s “Operation Warp Speed” candidates will be available by November, making any possible attempt to speed up a vaccine before the election extremely difficult . “I think there is a sense among many people on the inside that this is such a tempting thing to do, to put your hands in the Warp Speed bucket, pull out one or two vaccines and say, ‘Look, these are safe,’” vaccine expert Paul Offit of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who sits on the FDA vaccine

advisory committee, told BuzzFeed News. “I cannot imagine that you would have data that shows efficacy and in a period of time that would be over the next few months.” On Monday, Moderna began its first injections of 30,000 people as part of its Phase 3 clinical trial for its mRNA vaccine candidate. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence visited two of the 89 vaccine development sites across the country, where Moderna will monitor for signs that people who receive the vaccine are less likely to get infected or have severe illness than those injected with a placebo. The vaccine is one of five Operation Warp Speed candidates, so far supported by around $6 billion in federal funding. In May, Trump unveiled the new effort promising that vaccines would be available by the end of the year. “We’re all set to deliver them as soon as we have them — and that’s going to be very soon,” Trump said at a press briefing on Thursday. Trump’s emphasis on speed and his public fixation on vaccines as his reelection campaign falters has raised concern among public health experts and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden that the administration will jump safety guardrails. Biden has in the last week repeatedly called for transparency in showing vaccine candidates are proven safe and effective before they are rolled out to the public. And he has cast doubt on whether Trump is capable of providing that. “The development of a new vaccine requires a dedication to science, coordination, transparency, truth, and fairness to all — and we have a President who stands for none of these things,” Biden said in a statement from his campaign. The

vaccine safety guardrails that do exist may be too high for Trump to get around, though, even if he tries to ignore them. Trump administration officials, including Anthony Fauci and FDA chief Stephen Hahn, have repeatedly said that safety rather than speed would be the determining factor for releasing a vaccine to tens of millions of

people. In June, Fauci told McClatchy News there would be “no chance” he would agree to a vaccine that he doesn’t think passes muster. At a press briefing on Monday, Fauci said a rushed timeline would only work if there were big outbreaks in areas where people were already being administered the test vaccines, which would

quickly make clear whether they were effective. He added that he doubted that scenario would happen.

AT: TRUMP WINS 2020

BETTING MARKETS SUCK AT PREDICTING THE FUTURE – THEY WERE WRONG ABOUT 2016 AND BREXIT

Kominers 16 [Scott Duke Kominers, Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard and faculty affiliate of the Harvard Department of Economics, 11-15-2016, "Prediction Markets Didn't Call Trump's Win, Either," Bloomberg, [https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2016-11-15/prediction-markets-didn-t-call-trump-s-win-either] /Triumph Debate

There’s a lot of reflection, speculation, and soul-searching about the failure of most public-opinion polls to predict Donald Trump’s

election victory. But prediction markets – betting markets whose forecasts are often billed as far superior to polls –

didn’t do much better. QuickTakePerils of Polling Prediction markets are like stock exchanges, but their securities are tied to future events rather than companies. You can trade a security, say, that pays $1 if there is a minimum wage increase by the end of 2017, and $0 otherwise. Just as the prices in stock exchanges reflect the market’s overall perceptions about companies, the prices in prediction markets inform us about collective estimates of how likely different events are. If the “minimum wage hike” security is trading stably at 26 cents (as it is at time of writing) this means that people are willing to bet 26 cents for a chance to win $1 in the event that a minimum wage increase actually occurs. So we can infer that the public perceives that there’s only a 26 percent chance that the minimum wage will be increased in the

foreseeable future. Prediction markets are often uncannily accurate at aggregating public information about events. Prediction markets called nearly every state correctly in the 2012 presidential election. They correctly forecast the Supreme Court’s recent gay marriage and

affirmative action decisions. And they frequently predict Oscar nominees and winners. Yet they missed Trump’s win by a wide margin, just as they failed to anticipate other recent surprises like the U.K.’s June Brexit vote to leave the European

Union, and the margin that gave the U.K. Conservative Party a parliamentary majority in 2015. QuickTakeBrexit To get a sense of what might have gone awry, we first have to understand what it means when we say that the prediction markets got the forecasts wrong. On Predictit.org and similar sites, Trump was consistently trading below 35 cents in the month prior to the election, with an average daily closing price around 25 cents. This suggests that the prediction markets’ participants thought Trump had a one-in-four shot at victory. The state-level securities for key battleground states like Florida and Pennsylvania showed similar patterns. Given what we know now, it

seems likely that the prediction markets were underestimating Trump ’s true probability of winning . Long Shot But not so fast, you say: We shouldn’t be surprised that an event with one-in-four odds occurred – indeed, we should expect such events to

occur roughly one time out of four. That’s true, but when you put Trump together with Brexit, it starts to look like we

have a real problem. Predictit.org forecast Brexit at around 3 in 10 – so the likelihood of both a Trump victory and Brexit was estimated at just 7 .5 percent . 1 So what happened? It’s possible that most people betting on prediction markets don’t have much contact with the people who voted for Trump and Brexit. If all the

traders in a prediction market are missing a key piece of information, then the market price is missing it, too. Even if the market is liquid and frictionless – so that everyone can trade until the price perfectly reflects the data that market participants have

– there’s a big, proverbial (and in this case, Republican) data elephant that is not actually in the room. If none of

the prediction market participants had decent information on the scale of Trump’s support, then all the trading in the world could not lead to a price that correctly reflected his chance of victory . This problem is compounded by the fact that prediction market participants also infer information from the prevailing price

– and so may have discounted the signals of Trump’s strength that they did receive. Also, total payouts from prediction markets are too low to create a strong incentive for participants to work really hard to become substantially better-informed . This chain of logic suggests that prediction markets could be abnormally bad at forecasting events that will be decided by actions of people who aren’t themselves plugged in to prediction markets. And

there’s a message here about markets more broadly: Even the best-functioning markets don’t do a good job of pricing when key players aren’t represented. This is assuming that those events are sufficiently independent, which seems reasonable given that they were in different countries and several months apart.

AT: TRUMP WINS 2020

RUSSIA HACKS THE 2020 ELECTION – OTHER COUNTRIES WON’T SWING IT

Barnes 20 [Julian E. Barnes, NYT reporter for national security, 8-7-2020, "Russia Continues Interfering in Election to Help Trump, U.S. Intelligence Says," NYT, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/us/politics/russia-china-trump-biden-election-interference.html ] /Triumph Debate

Russia is using a range of techniques to denigrate Joseph R. Biden Jr., American intelligence officials said

Friday in their first public assessment that Moscow continues to try to interfere in the 2020 campaign to help President Trump. At the same time, the officials said China preferred that Mr. Trump be defeated in November and was weighing whether to

take more aggressive action in the election. Those conclusions were included in a statement released by William R.

Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center. But officials briefed on the

intelligence said that Russia was the far graver , and more immediate , threat. While China seeks to gain influence in

American politics, its leaders have not yet decided to wade directly into the presidential contest , however much they may dislike Mr. Trump, the officials said. The assessment by Mr. Evanina suggested the intelligence community was treading carefully, reflecting the political heat generated by previous findings: The White House has objected to conclusions that Moscow is working to help Mr.

Trump, and Democrats on Capitol Hill have expressed concern that the intell igence agencies are not being forthright enough about Russia’s preference for him and that the agencies are introducing China ’s anti-Trump stance to balance the scales. The assessment appeared to draw a distinction between what it called the “range of measures” being deployed

by Moscow to influence the election and its conclusion that China prefers that Mr. Trump be defeated It cited efforts coming out of pro-Russia forces in Ukraine to damage Mr. Biden and Kremlin-linked figures who “are also seeking to boost President Trump’s candidacy on social media and Russian television .” China, it said, has so far signaled its position mostly through increased public criticism of the administration’s tough line on China on a variety of fronts.

It is not clear how much China is doing to interfere directly in the presidential election . Intelligence officials

have briefed Congress in recent days that much of Beijing’s focus is on state and local races. But Mr. Evanina’s statement Friday suggested China was on weighing an increased effort. “Although China will continue to weigh the risks and benefits of aggressive action, its public rhetoric over the past few months has grown increasingly critical of the current administration’s Covid-19 response, closure of China’s Houston Consulate and actions on other issues,” Mr. Evanina said. Mr. Evanina pointed to growing tensions over territorial claims in the South China Sea, Hong Kong autonomy, the TikTok app and other issues. The release was short on specifics, but that was largely because the intelligence community is intent on trying to protect the sources of their information, said Senator Angus King, the Maine independent who

caucuses with the Democrats. “The director has basically put the American people on notice that Russia in particular , also China and Iran, are going to be try ing to meddle in this election and undermine our democratic system ,” said

Mr. King, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. While both Beijing and Moscow have a preference to the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, the Chinese and Russian influence campaigns are very different, officials said. Outside a few scattered

examples, it is hard to find much ev idence of intensifying Chinese influence efforts that could have a national effect. Much of what China is doing currently amounts to using its economic might to influence local politics, officials said. But that is hardly new. Beijing is also using a variety of means to push back on various Trump

administration policies, including tariffs and bans on Chinese tech companies, but those efforts are not covert and it is unclear if they would have an effect on presidential politics. The administration is overstating the immediacy of the China threat, said an American official briefed on the underlying intelligence. Russia, but not China, is trying to “actively influence” the outcome of the 2020 election, the official said. Democrats see the interference campaign run by Russia as a far more direct and urgent threat. “The fact that adversaries like China or Iran don’t like an

American president’s policies is normal fare,” said Jeremy Bash, a former Obama administration official. “What’s abnormal , disturbing and dangerous is that an adversary like Russia is actively trying to get a Trump re-elected.” Russia

tried to use influence campaigns during 2018 midterm voting to try to sway public opinion, but it did not successfully tamper with voting infrastructure.

AT: TRUMP WINS 2020

MAIL BALLOTS CHECK ELECTION HACKING

Patterson 20 [Dan Patterson, CBS tech reporter, 9-2-2020, "Top U.S. cybersecurity expert on mail-in voting: "If you've got paper, you've got receipts"," CBS, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mail-in-voting-cybersecurity-hackers-2020-elections/ ] /Triumph Debate

The world's top cybersecurity experts worry about how to protect election systems from hackers. But one thing they're not concerned about is mail-in ballots. Mail -in and absentee voting systems are resilient and secure because they generate paper trails that can be audited, said Christopher Krebs, director of the Department of Homeland

Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Mail-in and in-person voting both use similar methods to

count votes, but not all electronic voting booths generate a paper back-up for each vote. Each state is responsible for its

own election process, said Krebs, which makes it hard for hackers to meddle with votes on a national level. While manual paper vote-counting can be time-consuming, even if the tab ulation process goes awry in some areas , paper ballots help auditors verify accurate results . "If you're able to detect any sort of anomaly or something seems out of the

ordinary, you want to be able to roll back the tape," Krebs told CNET. "And if you've got paper, you've got receipts. So you can build back up to what the accurate count is ." His office is coordinating with private cybersecurity researchers and state governments to identify and report digital vulnerabilities. CISA recently released guides designed to help states identify election vulnerabilities by partnering with both the federal government and election security experts in the private sector. Krebs rolled out the election security plan in August at the annual Black Hat cybersecurity conference, which was held virtually. "Disclosure is the key part in

improving the cybersecurity of [election] services and systems," Krebs said. "Our goal is if [election officials] discover any sort of vulnerability or gap in the security posture, [they] have a process that you can work to close out that vulnerability." Other high-profile security researchers also affirmed the value of mail-in systems at Black Hat. In

his virtual keynote address, Georgetown Law professor Matt Blaze said that while mail-in and absentee voting systems are not foolproof, the systems are reliable, widely available, and lack many of the risks that plague digital voting systems . "[Absentee voting] is available everywhere and it's a fairly predictable, well-established concept in general," said Blaze.

AT: PRISONER’S RIGHTS

COMPULSORY VOTING ONLY INCLUDES “ELIGIBLE VOTERS” – INSERTING THIS HIGHLIGHTING TO NOT SAY ELIGIBLE VOTERS TWELVE TIMES

SLNSW 19 [State Library of New South Wales, 4-18-2019, "Compulsory enrolment and voting," State Library of New South Wales, https://legalanswers.sl.nsw.gov.au/hot-topics-voting-and-elections/compulsory-enrolment-and-voting ] /Triumph Debate

In Australia, the franchise might better be described as a duty to vote, rather than a right. Under the Commonwealth Electoral Act and the related state laws, voting is compulsory in Commonwealth, state and territory elections. Voting is also compulsory in local government

elections, except in South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. In practice, c ompulsory v oting means eligible voters must attend a polling place, have their name crossed off the list of voters, accept ballot papers and lodge them in a ballot box. They do not actually have to fill out the ballot papers. If ballot papers are not filled out correctly, they are set aside as ‘informal’. In purely practical terms, compulsory enrolment and voting work in Australia. The Australian Electoral Commission spends a considerable amount of time and money ensuring eligible people are enrolled and that they are able to cast a vote on polling day or beforehand. The Australian Electoral Commission staffs a large number of polling places in each electorate during polling day. Voters who cannot attend a polling booth on polling day can still vote by casting a postal vote or a pre-poll vote in the period after nominations to contest the election close. The Australian Electoral Commission provides mobile polling services for hospitals, prisons and remote parts of Australia

before polling day to allow eligible voters in these places to vote. Voter turnout This means the percentage of eligible voters who actually vote on election day. Voter turnout would undoubtedly be lower in Australia without compulsory voting. When voting in federal elections was voluntary at the start of the twentieth century, the turnout averaged around 63 per cent. Since voting was made compulsory in 1924, the average turnout has been about 95 per cent. The 2016 turnout of 91 per cent was the lowest since compulsory voting began, partly

because the enrolment rate was higher than in recent years. What if eligible voters don’t vote After every election, officials send a penalty notice to those eligible voters who do not seem to have voted. If those voters do not respond by giving a ‘valid and sufficient reason’ for not voting, they are fined. For federal elections, the amount of this fine is $20. If they do not pay the fine and do not provide a valid and sufficient

reason for not voting, the matter is taken to court. If the court imposes a fine and the eligible voter still declines to pay, the court may take further action, including imposing a jail sentence in some jurisdictions. What is a ‘valid and sufficient’ reason? Officials determine this on the merits of each case, in accordance with the law as previously interpreted by the courts and using guidelines drawn up the Australian Electoral Commission. These guidelines are kept confidential to prevent people from falsely using excuses they know will be valid. In 1994, the Commonwealth Administrative Appeals Tribunal ruled that the public could not have access to these guidelines under the Freedom of Information Act(Cth). Australian Electoral Commission publications suggest that a fine would be ‘unlikely’ in the cases of ‘the elderly and frail, women in late pregnancy, or the intellectually disabled’. According to the provisions of the Commonwealth Electoral Act, a voter’s belief that it is part of her or his religious duty to abstain from voting is also considered a valid and sufficient reason for not voting. Over the years, the courts have ruled out various reasons for not voting. These have related to political or moral objections rather than physical or intellectual incapacity. In the first important High Court case, Judd v McKeon [1926] HCA 33; (1926) 38 CLR 380, the majority of judges found that belonging to a political organisation that prohibits members from voting, or objecting to the views of all the candidates, were invalid reasons for not voting. Later cases affirmed that not having a preference among candidates, or not knowing enough to choose between them, were invalid reasons. In September 2012, Anders Holmdahl challenged his conviction for failing to vote in the 2010 federal election in the South Australian Supreme Court. The Supreme Court dismissed his argument that voting was a right rather than a responsibility and that Australian citizens should have the choice to choose whether to vote or not. Holmdahl appealed this judgement to the Full Bench of the High Court of Australia, which dismissed his appeal in April 2013. Is compulsory voting unique to Australia Despite what many Australians think, the answer is ‘no’. Compulsory voting backed up by a fine or other sanctions is found in a number of other countries at national, regional (state) and/or local levels, including: [chart omitted] These countries are quite varied. They include relatively new democracies as well as long-standing ones. They include countries that generally respect individual liberties as well as countries with a poorer record on this score. In some of these countries (e.g. Belgium), compulsory voting is mandated by the Constitution. In others (e.g. Singapore), it is prescribed by ordinary legislation, as it is in Australia. Compulsory voting is enforced by a variety of measures. Brazil and Ecuador, like Australia, fine individuals who have not voted without reason. In Belgium, individuals are removed from the electoral roll if they have not voted in four elections within 15 years and citizens in Peru and Bolivia must carry a voting card to access some services. Some countries, such as Austria, the Netherlands and Venezuela, have used compulsory voting in the past but have since switched to voluntary voting. In other countries compulsory voting has been raised as a remedy for perceived problems in voting. When the turnout among elgible voters fell below 60 percent in the 2001 UK General Elections, for example, some British commentators called for an examination of compulsory voting to increase both citizen participation and party responsiveness to electors. How we got compulsory enrolment and voting The Commonwealth first introduced compulsory enrolment in Australia in 1911. Compulsory voting came soon after, first in Queensland. The motives for its introduction there in 1914 had to do with party politics rather than high principle. Digby Denham’s Liberal Government believed that it would lose office at the 1915 election because its

disenchanted supporters would stay away from the polls, while Labor’s supporters would turn out in large numbers. Compulsion was introduced to try to force more Liberal voters to the polls. The plan succeeded in raising voter turnout, from 75 percent in 1912 to 88 percent in 1915. It failed, however, to save Denham’s Liberals, who lost to Labor. In 1924, the Commonwealth Parliament legislated for compulsory voting at federal elections. The bill to make the change was sponsored by E. Mann in the House of Representatives and H. Payne in the Senate, one of the few private members’ bills (that is, bills not put forward by the government of the day) ever to pass through the Commonwealth Parliament. Although some parliamentarians spoke against the measure, it attracted very little debate and was passed quickly in both houses without a division. The remaining states gradually introduced compulsory voting for at least their lower houses of parliament over the next two decades. The last state to fall into this pattern was South Australia, in 1942. Some elements of voluntary voting, however, remained until the 1980s. Aboriginal people were not compelled to enrol or vote in federal elections until 1984. Voting for the South Australian Legislative Council remained voluntary until 1985. State and Commonwealth governments generally have not considered a return to voluntary voting. However, in January 2013 the Queensland State Government released a discussion paper on electoral reform that considered the option of removing compulsory voting for Queensland elections. While Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard publicly opposed the suggestion, a number of prominent Liberal parliamentarians at the time (including Eric Abetz and Julie Bishop) supported voluntary voting. Their commitment to voluntarism rested on principles like individual freedom (see Compulsory voting - for and against). It may also have had to do with the questionable assumption that voluntary voting would advantage the Coalition over the Labor Party. Enrolment procedures For a long time, Australian electoral law has required eligible people to enrol themselves to vote and to update their details on the electoral roll if they moved address. While these requirements still exist, in July 2013, new ‘automatic enrolment’ laws came into effect. These gave the Australian Electoral Commission the

power to enrol people that it believed to be eligible voters and to update their details on the roll, using data collected by other government agencies. The Commission contacts individuals who are enrolled in this way to ask them to confirm their details. Due to this

automatic enrolment process, the number of unenrolled eligible voters has fallen from ten per cent to four per cent since the 2013 election.

AT: PRISONER’S RIGHTS

FELON DISENFRANCHISEMENT IS JUSTIFIED UNDER SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY AND PREVENTS CRIME

Clegg et al. 8 [Roger Clegg, General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity with degrees from Rice and Yale, Kenneth K. Lee, US judge at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, George T. Conway III, US attorney, 2008, “The Case Against Felon Voting,” University of St. Thomas Journal of Law and Public Policy, https://ir.stthomas.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=ustjlpp] /Triumph Debate

That candidate was Vice President Al Gore. As set forth below, Gore had good policy reasons for supporting the ban on felon voting. Yet this issue has grown heavily politicized in recent years, in large part due to the contested results in Florida in 2000. However, if it is soberly analyzed

outside the prism of partisan politics, there are strong justifications for felon disenfranchisement. First, felon disenfranchisement laws are justified on the basis of Locke's notion of the social contract : As Judge Henry

Friendly once put it, someone "who breaks the laws" may "fairly have been thought to have abandoned the right to participate" in making them." 9 Furthermore: [I]t can scarcely be deemed unreasonable for a state to decide that perpetrators of serious crimes shall not take part in electing the legislators who make the laws, the executives who enforce these, the prosecutors who must try them for further violations, or the judges who are to consider their cases. 120 That same reasoning motivated Massachusetts then-governor Paul Celluci in 2000 to support a ballot initiative stripping incarcerated felons of the right to vote after prisoners began to organize a political action committee. 2 ' A Massachusetts

state legislative leader commented about the State's now-abolished practice of allowing incarcerated felons to vote: "It makes no sense.

We incarcerate people and we take away their right to run their own lives and leave them with the ability to influence how we run our lives?"'122 Second, disenfranchisement has traditionally been deemed a part of punishment for committing a crime. 23 Criminal punishment can be meted out in various ways, including imprisonment, fines, probation and the withdrawal of certain rights and privileges. In the American system, it has long been established that "the States possess

primary authority for defining and enforcing the criminal law."' 24 Even more fundamentally, society considers convicts, even those

who have completed their prison terms, to be less trustworthy and responsible than non-convicted citizens.'25 In other areas of the law, full rights and privileges are not always restored to convicts , even though they may have "paid

[their] debt to society."' 26 For example, federal law prohibits the possession of a firearm for anyone indicted for or convicted of a felony punishable by at least one year in prison.'27 Also under federal law, anyone who has a "charge pending" or has been convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for one year or more cannot serve on a jury.'28 So if someone who has a "charge pending" against him is deemed incapable of sitting in judgment of the

fate of a single litigant, it hardly seems unreasonable to say that someone convicted of a felony cannot help shape the fate of a city, a state, or the entire nation. Even outside the realm of civic rights and privileges, society recognizes that an ex-convict may be less reliable than others. For example, employers routinely ask prospective employees whether they have been arrested (let alone convicted of a felony) because they suspect that the mere fact of

an arrest may be an indication of untrustworthiness. Critics of felon disenfranchisement laws note that these laws have a disproportionate impact on certain racial minority groups.'29 While society can be sensitive to such concerns, it is not a sufficient reason to abolish long-standing and justifiable laws in the attempt to achieve some form of racial balance. As W.E.B. DuBois once wrote, "Draw lines of crime, of incompetency, of vice, as tightly and uncompromisingly as you will, for these things must be proscribed; but a color-line not only does

not accomplish this purpose, but thwarts it."'3 In fact, the abolition of felon disenfranchisement laws may have the unintended effect of creat ing "anti-law enforcement " voting blocs and victimizing the vast majority of law-abiding citizens who live in high-crime urban areas -people who are themselves disproportionately black and Latino.' The political left's compassion ignoring the effect of its agenda on law-abiding people of color-is misplaced. Ultimately, the real solution is to deter and prevent the crimes from being committed, not to create loopholes and exceptions for punishments.

AT: POLITICAL POLARIZATION

POLITICAL POLARIZATION IS INEVITABLE

MANSBRIDGE 16 [JANE MANSBRIDGE, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL LEADERSHIP AT HARVARD AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION, 03-11-2016, "THREE REASONS POLITICAL POLARIZATION IS HERE TO STAY," WASHINGTON POST, HTTPS://WEB.ARCHIVE.ORG/WEB/20160321190141/HTTPS://WWW.WASHINGTONPOST.COM/NEWS/IN- THEORY/WP/2016/03/11/THREE-REASONS-POLITICAL-POLARIZATION-IS-HERE-TO-STAY/ ] /TRIUMPH DEBATE

A SUGGESTION ON POLARIZATION : GET USED TO IT . IT’S NOT GOING AWAY ANYTIME SOON. AMERICANS HAVE NOT, BY AND LARGE,

GROWN GRUMPIER OVER THE YEARS. BUT MEMBERS OF THE TWO MAJOR PARTIES HAVE STOPPED SPEAKING TO ONE ANOTHER ACROSS THE

AISLE. THEY DON’T VOTE TOGETHER , EITHER. THREE MAJOR STRUCTURAL CHANGES — GRADUAL PARTY REALIGNMENT , CLOSER ELECTIONS AND INEQUALITY — LARGELY EXPLAIN THE HUGE DECLINE IN THE NUMBERS OF PARTY MEMBERS WILLING TO VOTE FOR LEGISLATION THAT THE OTHER PARTY HAS SPONSORED , AND IN PARTICULAR THE NUMBER OF REPUBLICANS WILLING TO VOTE

FOR MEASURES THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY HAS SPONSORED. NONE OF THESE CAUSES IS LIKELY TO CHANGE . PARTY REALIGNMENT A MASSIVE TRANSITION BEGAN AFTER PRESIDENT L YNDON B . J OHNSON SIGNED THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT IN 1964. AS HE TOLD THEN-WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY BILL MOYERS THE NIGHT OF THE SIGNING, ”I THINK WE JUST DELIVERED THE SOUTH TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY FOR A LONG TIME TO

COME.” HE HAD SET IN MOTION A TRAIN OF EVENTS THAT, OVER TIME, WOULD SLOWLY LEAD CONSERVATIVE WHITE SOUTHERNER S TO LEAVE THE DEM OCRATIC PARTY AND JOIN THE REPUBLICANS . AS THE SOUTHERN CONSERVATIVES LEFT THE DEM OCRATIC

PARTY , THEY LEFT BEHIND A RELATIVELY LIBERAL REMNANT (IN SIGNIFICANT PART, AFRICAN AMERICANS).DEM OCRATS OUTSIDE THE SOUTH DID NOT BECOME MUCH MORE LIBERAL IN THE ENSUING YEARS, BUT THE CHANGE IN THE COMPOSITION OF THE PARTY IN THE SOUTH MADE THE NATIONAL PARTY MORE LIBERAL AND RECEPTIVE TO P EOPLE O F C OLOR . AS THE CONSERVATIVE SOUTHERNERS JOINED THE REPUBLICAN PARTY , THEY ALSO CHANGED ITS CENTER OF GRAVITY . THEIR PERSPECTIVES AND DEMANDS EMPOWERED THE RIGHT WING OF THE PARTY THAT HAD LONG CHAFED UNDER THE MODERATE REPUBLICAN ESTABLISHMENT . EVANGELICALS ROSE IN STRENGTH ; BUSINESSPEOPLE FELL. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY BEGAN TO LOOK FOR SUPPORT LESS IN

MAINE AND MORE IN GEORGIA. ITS MEMBERS BECAME MORE EXTREMELY CONSERVATIVE , WHILE THE MEMBERS OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

BECAME ONLY A LITTLE MORE LIBERAL. CLOSE ELECTIONS WITH THIS SHIFT , THE PARTIES IN CONGRESS BECAME MORE ELECTORALLY COMPETITIVE . SOUTHERN CONSERVATIVES LEAVING THE DEM OCRATIC PARTY GRADUALLY ADDED THEIR NUMBERS TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY , WHICH IN 1980 WON A MAJORITY OF SEATS IN THE SENATE (AND IN 1994 A MAJORITY IN THE HOUSE) FOR ALMOST THE

FIRST TIME SINCE THE NEW DEAL. THE PERIOD OF BIPARTISANSHIP IN WASHINGTON, FROM 1940 TO 1980 , WAS ACTUALLY A PERIOD OF DEM OCRATIC DOMINANCE . WITH THE DEMOCRATS IN MORE OR LESS PERMANENT POWER, IT BEHOOVED INDIVIDUAL REPUBLICANS TO PLAY NICE IN ORDER TO GET THEIR BRIDGES AND ROADS. BUT BY 1980 , THE PARTIES BEGAN A PERIOD OF INTENSE COMPETITION . AS FRANCES LEE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND POINTS OUT , WHEN THE MINORITY PARTY THINKS IT MIGHT WIN IN THE NEXT ELECTION , IT HAS A GREAT INCENTIVE NOT TO LET THE MAJORITY PARTY HAVE ANY “WINS ” THAT IT MIGHT RUN ON IN THAT NEXT ELECTION . SHE QUOTES THEN-HOUSE CHIEF DEPUTY MINORITY WHIP KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CALIF.) FROM

2009: “IF YOU ACT LIKE YOU’RE THE MINORITY, YOU’RE GOING TO STAY IN THE MINORITY. WE’VE GOTTA CHA LLENGE THEM ON EVERY SINGLE BILL .” INCREASING INEQUALITY THE NOW-FAMOUS U-CURVE OF INCOME INEQUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES SHOWS THAT AFTER A PERIOD OF RELATIVE EQUALITY FROM ABOUT 1940 TO 1980, WE HAVE TODAY BECOME AS UNEQUAL AS WE WERE IN THE LAST GILDED AGE . THAT U-CURVE OF INCOME INEQUALITY TRACKS UNCANNILY THE U-CURVE OF POLARIZATION , WHICH IN 1910 WAS ALMOST AS HIGH AS IT IS NOW , THEN FELL PRECIPITOUSLY — ALONG WITH INCOME INEQUALITY — UNTIL IT BOTTOMED OUT IN THE BIPARTISAN ERA FROM 1940 TO 1980. IT ROSE AGAIN , IN EXACT PARALLEL WITH INEQUALITY , TO ITS PRESENT

HEIGHTS. WHY? INEQUALITY SEEMS TO CAUSE POLARIZATION AND POLARIZATION TO SOME EXTENT CAUSES INEQUALITY . NOLAN

MCCARTY AND HIS COLLEAGUES AT PRINCETON ARE BEGINNING TO TEASE OUT THE MECHANISMS. IN STATE POLITICS, THEY FIND THAT STATES WITH INCREASING INCOME INEQUALITY EXPERIENCE TWO POLARIZING EFFECTS . FIRST, STATE REPUBLICAN PARTIE S SHIFT TO

THE RIGHT OVERALL. SECOND, STATE DEM OCRATIC PARTIES SHIFT TO THE LEFT BECAUSE THEIR MODERATES LOSE . RICH REPUBLICAN DONORS COULD WELL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR BOTH OUTCOMES IF , AS SEEMS LIKELY, THEY FUND MORE EXTREME CANDIDATES IN REPUBLICAN DISTRICTS AND TARGET THE DEM OCRATS THEY HAVE THE BEST CHANCE TO DISLODGE , NAMELY THOSE

IN POLITICALLY MODERATE DISTRICTS . THE BIG PICTURE IS THAT THE EXTRAORDINARY GROWTH IN INCOMES AT THE TOP OF THE

INCOME DISTRIBUTION MAKES POSSIBLE THE DISCRETIONARY MONEY THAT CAN THEN BE POURED INTO POLITICS , AND THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTE TO POLITICS ARE , ON AVERAGE, A GOOD DEAL MORE EXTREME IN THEIR VIEWS THAN THE AVERAGE VOTER. THE GRADUAL PARTY REALIGNMENT AFTER 1964, THE CLOSENESS OF ELECTIONS SINCE 1980, AND THE GROWTH IN INCOME AT THE TOP OF THE DISTRIBUTION ARE THE THREE DEEP CAUSES OF POLARIZATION. GERRYMANDERING IS NOT THE CAUSE; THE SENATE IS AS POLARIZED AS THE HOUSE. PRIMARIES ARE NOT THE CAUSE; PRIMARY REFORMS HAVE HAD RELATIVELY LITTLE EFFECT. CHANGES IN THE RULES OF THE HOUSE AND SENATE HAVE HAD SOME EFFECT, AS HAVE THE INCREASING NUMBER OF HOURS THAT LEGISLATORS NOW HAVE TO SPEND FUNDRAISING AND THE INCREASING NUMBER OF HOURS THEY NOW SPEND IN THEIR HOME DISTRICTS WITH THEIR CONSTITUENTS. BUT OF THE THREE DEEPEST CAUSES, AT LEAST PARTY REALIGNMENT AND INCOME INEQUALITY ARE LIKELY TO CONTINUE. CLOSE ELECTIONS MAY WELL CONTINUE, TOO. SO POLARIZATION IS HERE TO STAY — FOR THE INDEFINITE FUTURE.

AT: MINORITY REPRESENTATION

SYSTEMATIC VOTER SUPPRESSION PREVENTS MINORITIES FROM EXERCISING POWER

Newkirk 18 [Vann R. Newkirk II, staff writer for the Atlantic with a master’s of science with a Masters of Science in Public Health and Health Policy from UNC-Chapel Hill, 7-17-2018, "Voter Suppression Is Warping Democracy," Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/poll-prri-voter-suppression/565355/ ] /Triumph Debate

Voter suppression almost certainly helped Donald Trump win the presidency. Multiple academic studies and court rulings indicate that racially biased election laws, such as voter-ID legislation in places like Wisconsin,

favored Republican candidates in 2016. Like most other elections in American history, this one wasn’t a fair fight.

A new poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and The Atlantic has uncovered evidence of deep structural barriers to the ballot for black and Latino voters, specifically in the 2016 election. More than that, the survey finds that the deep wounds of Jim Crow endure, leaving America’s democratic promise unfulfilled. The real extent of voter suppression in the

United States is contested. As was the case for poll taxes and literacy tests long ago, restrictive election laws are often, on their

face, racially neutral, giving them a sheen of legitimacy. But the new data from PRRI and The Atlantic suggest that the outcomes of

these laws are in no way racially neutral. The poll, conducted in June, surveyed Americans about their experiences with voting, their

assessments of the country’s political system, and their interfaces with civics. The results, especially when analyzed by race, are troublesome.

They indicate that voter suppression is commonplace, and that voting is routinely harder for people of color than for their white counterparts. The new data support perhaps the worst-case scenario offered by opponents of restrictive voting

laws. Nine percent of black respondents and 9 percent of Hispanic respondents indicated that , in the last

election, they (or someone in their household) were told that they lacked the proper id entification to vote . Just 3 percent of whites said the same. Ten percent of black respondent s and 11 percent of Hispanic respondent s reported that they were incorrectly told that they weren’t listed on voter rolls, as opposed to 5 percent of white respondents. In all, across just about every issue identified as a common barrier to voting,

black and Hispanic respondents were twice as likely, or more, to have experienced those barriers as white

respondents. The numbers not only suggest that policies such as voter-ID requirements and automatic voter purges do, indeed, have strong racial and ethnic biases, but also that there are more subtle barriers for people of color

that compound the effects of these laws. Fifteen percent of black respondent s and 14 percent of Hispanic respondent s said that they had trouble finding polling places on Election Day, versus 5 percent of whites. This

finding squares with research indicating that frequent changes to polling-site location s hurt minority voters more. Additionally, more than one in 10 blacks and Hispanics missed the registration deadline to vote in

2016, as opposed to just 3 percent of whites. And black and Hispanic respondents were twice as likely as white respondents to have been unable to get time off work for voting. There are informal roadblocks as well. Under the specter of alleged voter fraud by noncitizens—which was based more on anti-immigrant sentiment than any data or other evidence—and amid

increasingly incendiary rhetoric about Latinos, Hispanic voters found 2016 especially difficult. “Roughly one in 10 Hispanics said that

the last time they or someone in their household tried to vote, they were bothered at the polls,” Dan Cox, the research director at

PRRI, told me. “If you think about the idea of a stolen election, it fits easily into this broader narrative of cultural threat, where perceived outsiders are taking something away from people who were already there.” These results add credence to what many critics of restrictive voting laws have long suspected. First, voter-ID laws and other, similar statutes aren’t passed in a vacuum, but rather in a country where people of color are significantly less likely to be able to meet the new

requirements. Whether intended to discriminate or not, these laws discriminate in effect, and while there is no evidence

that they’ve averted any kind of fraud, there is plenty of data detailing just how they’ve created Republican advantages. In that way, Trump’s chances in 2016 may have turned not only on the approval or disapproval of white voters, but

also on how effectively state laws, access issues, and social penalties conspired to keep black and Hispanic voters away from polling places. This is the reality that drives minority fears of a country in regression. The survey’s respondents, as a whole, were actually more likely than those of any PRRI sample over the past seven years to report that things in the country are going in the right direction. But 86 percent of black respondents and 74 percent of Hispanic respondents believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. That finding is supported by data from other pollsters that suggest that the vast majority of black people are facing levels of anxiety and fear about the future that are unprecedented in recent memory.

AT: Election Day = Holiday

ELECTION DAY ISN’T A HAPPY HOLIDAY

Nwanevu 16 [Osita Nwanevu, Slate staff writer and the New Republic with a Master of Public Policy from the University of Chicago, 11-3-2016, "Making Election Day a Holiday Might Hurt More Working-Class Voters Than It Helps," Slate Magazine, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/11/an-election-day-holiday-might-not-increase-turnout-studies-demonstrate.html ] /Triumph Debate

He’s right, of course, but it’s not clear that making Election Day a federal holiday would be a desirable or effective solution to our dismal turnout record. As Inc.’s Suzanne Lucas pointed out recently, a federal holiday would actually burden many retail and service employees at the kinds of workplaces that don’t shut down for federal holidays : Retail. Restaurants. Hospitals. Small er businesses that can’t afford to lose a day of revenue, and if they do, they certainly can’t afford to pay people for the time off. What does that mean? If you make election day a federal holiday, you’ll have all the people who work in these types of jobs still having to work, being inundated with customers who have the day off and they won’t have child care because the schools will be closed. The question of who would benefit from an Election Day holiday is further complicated by looking more closely

at the Census Bureau’s data on nonvoters. In 2014, registered voters from households making more than $150,000 a

year were the most likely to say they were too busy to head to the polls—more than 35 percent of them claimed so, while none of the income brackets less than $40,000 had more than 25 percent of respondents report they were too busy. Unsurprisingly, lower-income nonvoters are more likely than wealthier nonvoters to cite illness and disability or trouble getting to the polls as problems . Wealthier nonvoters, less impeded by these kinds of challenges, say they have mostly their schedules to blame . Given this, a n Election Day holiday would remove a significant barrier to participation for relatively well-to-do potential voters while doing little to make voting easier for a significant number of less privileged ones.

AT: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

COMPULSORY VOTING ALLOWS RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS

Sainty 16 [Lane Sainty, Buzzfeed reporter, 7-2-2016, "You Can Refuse To Vote Based On "Religious Duty" In Australia – But What If You're Not Religious?," BuzzFeed, https://www.buzzfeed.com/lanesainty/gotta-have-faith ] /Triumph Debate

At the last federal election, on July 2, 2016, every adult in Australia was meant to vote . But not everyone did.

An estimated 816,000 Australians were missing from the electoral roll on election day. Around 1.3 million more were on the roll, but didn't cast their ballot, risking a $20 fine under Australia's compulsory voting laws. One of those people in the latter category was Adam Easton, an agnostic man who said voting for someone he did not trust would have left him

feeling "morally corrupt, much like a religious person, I imagine, if they had just sinned". Easton was prosecuted for his failure to vote in the New South Wales Local Court , where he represented himself. He argued that he was not guilty under part

of the Electoral Act that says someone can legally refuse to vote if it's part of their religion — and he won. Now, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) is appealing the decision, saying it is "plainly wrong" and in the public interest for it to be overturned before more people decide not to rock up to the polling booth.

AT: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES’ ONLY MAKE UP A SMALL PERCENT OF THE VOTING POPULATION – AND NOT ALL OF THEM OBJECT TO VOTING

Kiple 17 [Chloe Kiple, Michigan news anchor with a BA in journalism from MSU, 12-12-2017, "Staying out of the fray – Jehovah’s Witnesses’ political neutrality," Spartan Newsroom, https://news.jrn.msu.edu/2017/12/staying-out-of-the-fray-jehovahs-witnesses-political-neutrality/ ] /Triumph Debate

Not voting: Un-American? In Michigan, the religion makes up less than 1 percent of the population, according to the Pew Research Center. Last year’s presidential election was preceded by mud-splattering, fake news and contention, but Jehovah’s Witnesses like Samuel and Melissa stayed out of the fray. “We choose to be neutral, politically, so we can show love to our brothers around the whole world,” Melissa said. “We don’t choose one side or another side.” Jehovah’s Witnesses are the least likely to vote of any religious group.

Sixty-four percent of Jehovah’s Witnesses report they are not registered to vote, or they are unsure of their registration status. [Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Voter Registration Status Not registered / don’t know 64% Registered to vote 17% Not a U.S. Citizen 14%

Probably registered, but unsure 5%] That stat pisses a lot of people off, said former Jehovah’s Witness Vanessa Robles, 27.

AT: CV UNCONSTITUTIONAL

COMPULSORY VOTING ISN’T CONSIDERED SPEECH AND THE GOVERNMENT CAN CONSTITUTIONALLY REGULATE IT EVEN IF IT IS

Harvard 20 [Harvard Kennedy School Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, 7-2020, “Lift Every Voice The Urgency of Universal Civic Duty Voting,” Harvard Kennedy School Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Br_LIFT_Every_Voice_final.pdf ] /Triumph Debate

At first blush, these instances might seem to spell trouble for a civic duty voting program. Some might argue that a voting requirement (and even an elections participation requirement) could be seen as government-compelled speech. But

the Supreme Court, in the cases addressing the three issues just identified, did not entirely outlaw the practices. Some schools

still conduct pledges of allegiance (but can’t force students to participate), and New Hampshire continues to offer

“Live Free or Die” license tags (which drivers may reject). The Court’s rulings permit objectors to opt out—or prohibit government from compelling conduct—while allowing willing participants to continue engaging in the

complained-of activity. That is key to consideration of a civic duty voting requirement: Practices implicating speech—or conduct with a speech element—may be imposed, so long as the government permits an opportunity to opt out.

A conscientious objector option would offer those seeking to abstain from voting an opportunity to do so. A civic duty voting program,

however, need not unconstitutionally regulate expressive conduct, because the act of engagement itself —merely participating in an election —is not inherently expressive. A program that allows individuals to comply with the participation requirement by leaving the ballot blank, or by checking “none of the above,” would not give a hypothetical outside obs erver any way of determining what message the individual intended to communicate, or if there was a message at all. As the Supreme Court has explained, conduct that communicates receives First Amendment protection only if the speaker had “an intent to convey a particularized message” and “in the surrounding circumstances the likelihood was great that the message would be understood by those who viewed it.”61 Writing in the Southern California Law Review on this subject, Sean Matsler

noted that “since no one clear meaning can be ascribed to the ‘none of the above’ option, it is not communicative and therefore not a valid subject of constitutional protection.”62 As a counterargument, some may claim the government’s compelling election attendance—even just for purposes of signing in—is itself a First Amendment violation insofar as showing up, with nothing more, amounts to a form of speech demonstrating support for the

democratic process, generally, and for voting, more specifically. That “anarchist” argument, though, likely fails for the same reason claims that filing and paying taxes, showing up for jury duty , and signing up for selective service likely fail: Such regulations are within the constitutional power of the Government, they further an important or substantial governmental interest, the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression, and the incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest.63 Even if a court were to find that the regulated conduct—i.e., the

requirement to participate in or attend elections—implicated expression, the regulation itself would likely be considered justified when weighed against the alleged burdens imposed. This is because the government is not requiring the voter to vote for any one candidate. As a note in the December 2007 edition of the Harvard Law Review

stated, “requiring someone to vote for a particular cause or candidate would clearly violate the First Amendment, but requiring someone to vote for the candidate of his or her choosing is viewpoint neutral ,” and thus subject to a more lax level of scrutiny by the courts (one in which the judiciary could view an elections-attendance

requirement in furtherance of an “important” state interest that was also “substantially related” to furthering that interest). 64 The government interest here, of course, would be in ensuring truly democratic ally-elected leaders and representative bodies, something only achieved through consistent turnout by the majority of voting eligible citizens . Since no such consistency has developed on its own over the

centuries, the government may justifiably issue regulations to achieve that interest. Such regulations,

moreover, don’t suppress free speech—the voter is free to check-in as having participated (in person or by mail)

and walk away without casting a ballot . Given what we know of turnout rates in countries with comparable universal voting policies, we can rest assured that the regulation will nevertheless be effective (and thus

further the government interest): Turnout rates, as we have already seen, often surpass 80 percent.65 Even if Elections Implicate

Speech, they Involve Conduct that Government may Regulate The Supreme Court, in Burdick v. Takushi, held that “when a

state election law provision imposes only ‘reasonable, nondiscriminatory restrictions’ upon the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of voters, ‘the State’s important regulatory interests are generally sufficient to justify the restrictions .” Although many scholars have criticized this more lenient standard, given that it

can allow states to engage in practices that restrict the right to vote , it should apply just the same to efforts to include more people in the electorate .66 Further, the First Amendment burden on a citizen’s expressive

power would at most be minimal: The citizen need only cast a ballot (or check a box for “conscientious objector” etc.) with no obligation to participate further, and an outside observer —given the privacy of the ballot—couldn’t determine the content or extent of participation . The citizen, moreover, enjoys full freedom to denounce or critique the process as desired . That minimal burden,67 under the Court’s balancing test,

would be compared against the State’s interest in promoting representative government , reducing barriers to voting, and ensuring the broadest possible participation. In weighing these injuries and interests against

each other, the Court would likely defer to the needs of the State, since the primary “function of the election

process is to winnow out and finally reject all but the chosen candidates … not to provide a means of giving vent to short-range political goals, pique, or personal quarrel[s].”68 And it needs to be underscored:

Requiring participation in elections does not negatively impact what some have asserted is the right not to vote. As

Derfner and Herbert point out, the Supreme Court hasn’t yet explicitly extended First Amendment protections to the right to vote, but that doesn’t mean that it will not or that it should not.69 Indeed, as they observe, “[I]t seems like an obvious proposition that a citizen registering to vote or casting a ballot is engaging in free speech, a fundamental right entitled to full protection under the First Amendment.”70 Moreover, the Court has regularly described voting as a form of speech, even if it hasn’t specifically used the word “speech”: Supreme Court case law supports a theory of First Amendment protection for voters. The Court has repeatedly characterized the fundamental right to vote in terms of “voice” and expression. In Wesberry v. Sanders, the Court explained: “[N]o right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws.” In Reynolds v. Sims, the Court held: “[E] ach citizen [must] have an equally effective voice in the election of members of his state legislature.” In Norman v. Reed, the Court noted that voting gives “opportunities of all voters to express their own political preferences.”… The list goes on at length.71

AT: VOTER SUPPRESSION / MAIL SLOWDOWN

COMPULSORY VOTING WOULD REQUIRE THE GOVERNMENT TO EASE VOTER SUPPRESSION AND IS THE ONLY WAY TO JUSTIFY GOVERNMENT CONTROL

Economist 15 [Economist, 03-20-2015, "Mandatory Voting Want to make me?," Economist, https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2015/03/20/want-to-make-me ] /Triumph Debate

There are a number of arguments one can make in favour of mandatory voting. I am inclined to favour it, but mainly for second-order reasons:

a state that legally requires everyone to vote must also make it possible for them to do so . The most

important goal to which mandatory voting could contribute would be to shift the burden of ensuring that citizens can vote from the individual to the state. Being registered to vote ought to be thought of as a right, rather than a duty or a lifestyle option. It should be the state's business, not the citizen's, to ensure that every citizen is issued with a voter card. The state taxes us , drafts us in time of war , enforces laws restricting our actions, and arrests us when we break them . By what right does it do all of this if it has not also made voting for these officers as widespread as possible ? What right does the state have to erect any barrier, however trivial, to citizens participating in the election of those who will govern them ? It makes perfect sense for the state to demand that I go through the bother of getting a licence in exchange for the privilege of driving a car. But

if the state wants me to show an identification card to exercise my right to vote, it should be required to mail me one.

AT: VOTER SUPPRESSION / MAIL SLOWDOWN

MAIL BALLOTS ARE SAFE – DEJOY ROLLED-BACK CHANGES, USPS HAS THE CAPACITY, AND THEY’RE GETTING MORE SOURCES

Wu 20 [Nicholas Wu, writer for USA Today, 08-18-2020, "Postmaster General DeJoy says he will stop Postal Service changes until after November election," USA TODAY, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/08/18/election-usps-postmaster-general-says-hes-suspending-mail-changes/5602523002/ ] /Triumph Debate

The head of the U.S. Postal Service said he would pause operational changes at the agency until after the November election after lawmakers expressed fear the changes would hinder the collection of mail-in ballots. Postmaster General Louis

DeJoy said in a statement he had been making changes at the agency to ensure its long-term sustainability, but "to avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail , I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded." "The Postal Service is ready today to handle whatever volume of election mail it receives this

fall," he said, adding that "standby resources" would be engaged on Oct. 1 to handle the increased volume of election mail. He said a task force on election mail would also be expanded.

AT: EU

CORONAVIRUS MEANS EU COLLAPSE IS INEVITABLE

Erlanger 20 [Steven Erlanger, chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe for the NYT and former teaching fellow at Harvard, 3-12-2020, "Coronavirus Tests Europe’s Cohesion, Alliances and Even Democracy," NYT, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/world/europe/coronavirus-eu-trump.html ] /Triumph Debate

The rapid spread of the new coronavirus presents a severe test for democracies, for the European Union as an institution and for

the trans-Atlantic alliance. And so far, it has been every nation for itself. While Italy begged for aid, the European Union appeared to

delay and fumble, with member states ignoring calls for solidarity. The United States, for its part, chose to try to cut itself off from Europe entirely. President Trump’s decision to divide the United States from its European allies through a travel ban and blame them for inaction, rather than take a leadership role in cooperation and coordination, struck many analysts as particularly politicized and damaging, especially as European governments say the ban was imposed unilaterally,

without consulting them. But the search for scapegoats — first China, then Europe — is seen as part of the inevitable politicization of a crisis some are comparing to wartime. The responses of democracies — especially as states

take increasingly harsher steps, as in Italy, to control the movement of their own citizens, let alone foreigners — may be a

significant boon to Europe’s far-right populists, who favor a strong nation state and oppose immigration and globalization. “After 9/11 and the 2008 global financial crisis, this is the third big test of our decency and ability to cooperate, because the virus does not respect borders,’’ said Constanze Stelzenmüller, a German and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “We need to cooperate across the board, in health management and fiscal stimulus.” For the European Union and the new team at its executive arm, the European Commission, led by Ursula von der Leyen, this pandemic is a challenge to her intention to have a “geopolitical commission,’’ Ms. Stelzenmüller said — ‘‘if the member states let her.” This is a major test for the European Union, with the virus piled on top of existing crises over migration and rule of law, said Paul Adamson, founder of Encompass, a journal on Europe. “European values, solidarity, sticking together sound like hollow phrases, and we haven’t reached a spike in the virus yet,” he said. Over time, the virus itself may impose its own kind of discipline on feckless political leaders. The virus does not respect rhetoric, inaction, a lack of coordination, or restrictions with gaping loopholes — all of which it is already exposing. “It’s very evident how little cooperation there has been among member states and how slow governments have been in supporting the economy,” said Rosa Balfour of the German Marshall Fund in Brussels. “The European Union has

chosen to wait and see,” she added. ‘‘The virus can be a transformative moment and I’m not sure that the E.U. will rise to that.” Solidarity has been in short supply. Germany and France restricted the export of medical supplies,

in violation of the European single market, and Austria and the Czech Republic have banned travelers from Italy, in violation of the principle of free travel. Even Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who was praised for speaking in rational terms on Wednesday about how as many as 70 percent of Germans could catch the virus, was criticized for not announcing strong measures proportionate to that diagnosis. “I’d also like to see the German chancellor say that ‘we’re all in this together,’ and that the Italians will get extra support from us,’’ Ms. Stelzenmüller said. Instead, that was left to the Chinese, who immediately sent Italy medical experts and promised to provide cheaply 2 million face masks, 20,000 protective suits and 1,000 respirators. “And that just feeds Salvini,’’ said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform, referring to Matteo Salvini, the Italian far-right populist who is a sharp critic of immigration, globalization

and the European Union itself. Matters will get worse with the economic impact of the crisis, Mr. Grant said. “The euro crisis could return, because there are too many bad debts in banks,’’ especially in Italy, “and there is still no proper bank resolution regime and no eurozone deposit insurance.’’ The populists, he said, “will make hay with that.’’ If

the virus proceeds at pace and governments respond less effectively than in South Korea or Singapore, criticism “will feed into an

already troubled political climate, with general frustration and resentment of government,’’ said Simon Tilford,

director of the Forum New Economy, a research institution in Berlin. Those frustrations will only be made worse by the severe economic shock that the virus is likely to deal to a Europe barely growing, he said. “If governments mishandle the policy

response to the economic downturn, the political reaction could be toxic at home and for the European Union,’’ Mr. Tilford

said. Italy is particularly explosive, he said. “There’s already a backlash against globalization and openness there, a strong feeling that the country has been on the losing side of globalization and the euro, that the elite have not defended the national

interest, and that Italy has already been badly let down by the E.U. over migration,’’ Mr. Tilford said. The virus, he said, “is clearly a gift to the populist right in Europe.’’ Yascha Mounk, an expert on democracy and populism at Johns Hopkins University, notes that while the virus may aid populists in opposition, it could also undermine populists who are in power. “You can have a reality-free administration as long as you don’t face a major crisis,” he said. “But in the face of a global pandemic, braggadocio and denial of reality will display the credibility crisis populists face.” But if more traditional leaders like Ms. Merkel “have spoken in more honest and serious ways, competent governments are also failing badly in their responses,” Mr. Mounk said. “Merkel is more forthright about the facts but fails to draw the obvious conclusions,’’ he added, pointing out that German schools were still open, major sports events continued, and people had not been urged to work from home. “So populists will respond first with a denial of facts and responsibility, of how bad the situation is,” Mr. Mounk said. “Then they’re likely to admit it’s bad but pretend it’s all the fault of everyone else and that they have been fighting a valiant struggle against the virus all along.” Mr. Trump’s decision to try to isolate the United States is not by itself irrational as an effort to slow the pace of the disease, said François Heisbourg,

a French analyst, noting that Israel had taken even tougher action without criticism. The problem is the way that Mr. Trump had aimed the ban at the European Union, which he has already labeled an economic foe, Mr. Heisbourg said, while allowing

flights to continue from countries like Turkey. That underlines the sense in the Europe Union that it is being opposed by

“three predators — Russia, China and the United States, which all seek to destroy it,” he said. “For Europe this is a very big moment, which requires faster action by states to lock down people, because the longer the delay, the worse the consequences,” Mr. Heisbourg said. “A pandemic carries the same logic as a war, and in war, it’s the results that count. The state is at the center, and it’s not a

situation where the normal pace of democratic debate can handle the crisis.” Rates of infection are following the Italian pattern, and if Brussels and states do not respond more forcefully and faster with strong executive action, Mr. Heisbourg said,

they are inviting larger trouble. “Then you leave the field to the populists and you’re dead, because here the populists are right,” he said. “Even democracies behave more like authoritarians in a war.”

AT: EU

TRUMP AND THE TRAVEL BAN ARE MASSIVE ALTERNATE CAUSES TO EU POPULISM

VOA 17 [Voice of America, 2-3-2017, “European Populists See Boost in Trump’s Travel ban,” Voice of America, https://www.voanews.com/a/european-populists-see-boost-in-trump-travel-ban/3704636.html ] /Triumph Debate

In Donald Trump, Eu rope’s populist leader s think they have found a champion . For now. The opening salvoes of

Trump’s presidency, most notably his 90-day ban on immigration from seven Muslim -majority nations , are being gleefully milked by anti-Muslim lawmaker Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and other populist leader s in Germany , Italy and elsewhere who want to roll back the European Union and stem the influx of migrants and refugees. Stemming immigration Ignoring the anti-Trump protests, the wide criticism and legal challenges that have erupted over the new U.S. president’s ban,

populists in Europe argue that Trump is proving that immigration can be stemmed, even stopped. They see a quick and decisive leader — and their latest weapon with which to attack the Eu ropean governments and institutions they accuse of being soft on immigration. For Alexander Gauland, deputy leader of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany

party, Trump is “a path-finder, by proving that with political will you can change polices.’’ “It makes it easier for

people who want to stop Islamic immigration that Trump says: ‘You can do it,’’’ Gauland said. “If this policy works, and if Mr. Trump works

with these goals, then it could be helpful in the next general election in Germany or the French presidential elections.’’

AT: DEMOCRACY IMPACTS

DEMOCRATIZATION DOESN’T PREVENT WAR

Mosseau 18 [Michael, political science professor at the University of Central Florida, 02-28-2018, “Grasping the scientific evidence: The contractualist peace supersedes the democratic peace,” Sage Journals https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0738894215616408 ] /Triumph Debate

The results are consistent across all tests: there is no credible ev idence supporting democracy as a cause of peace. Using DOR’s base model, the impact of democracy is zero regardless of how contractualist economy or

interstate conflict is measured . There is no misinterpreted interaction term in any study that has overturned the democratic peace, and the disaggregation of the data yields no support for a causal interaction of democracy with contractualist economy. Ray’s (2013)

ev idence for reverse causality from democracy to contractualist economy is shown to be based on an erroneous research design. And of DOR’s 120 separate regressions that consider contractualist economy, 116 contain controversial

measurement and specification practices; the remaining four are analyses of all (fatal and non-fatal) disputes, where the correlation of democracy with peace is limited to mixed economic dyads , those where one state has a contractualist economy and the other does not, a subset that includes only 27% of dyads from 1951 to 2001 , including only 50% of democratic dyads. It is further shown that this marginal peace is a statistical artifact since it does not exist among neighbors where everyone has an equal opportunity to fight . The results of this study should not be surprising, as they merely corroborate the present state of knowledge. This is because, while DOR ardently assert that four alleged errors, when corrected, each independently save the democratic peace proposition—multiple imputation, the exclusion of ongoing dispute years, an interaction term, and their alternative measure for contractualist economy—they never actually report any clear-cut evidence in support of their claims. One issue not addressed is Dafoe and Russett’s (2013) challenge to Mousseau et al. (2013a) on the grounds that our reported insignificance of democracy is not significant. Like the four claims of error made by DOR addressed here, Dafoe and Russett (2013) made this charge without supporting it. Mousseau et al. (2013b) then investigated it and showed that it 176 Conflict Management and Peace Science 35(2) too has no support. This issue appears resolved, as Russett and colleagues (DOR) did not raise it again. Nor have DOR or anyone else disputed the overturning of the democratic peace as reported in Mousseau (2012a), which has not been contested with any assertion, supported or

unsupported. The implications of this study are far from trivial: the observation of democratic peace is a statistical artifact , seemingly explained by economic conditions . If scientific knowledge progresses and the field of

interstate conflict processes is to abide by the scientific rules of evidence, then we must stop describing democracy as a ‘‘known’’

cause or correlate of peace, and stop tossing in a variable for democracy, willy-nilly, in quantitative analyses of international conflict; the variable to replace it is contractualist economy. If nations want to advance peace abroad , the promotion of democracy will not achieve it : the policy to replace it is the promotion of economic opportunity. The economic norms account for how contractualist economy can cause both democracy and peace has been explicated in numerous prior studies and need not be repeated here (Mousseau, 2000, 2009, 2012a, 2013). An abundance of prior studies have also corroborated various novel predictions of the theory in wider domains (Ungerer, 2012), and no one has disputed the multiple reports that contractualist economy is the

strongest non-trivial predictor of peace both within (Mousseau, 2012b) and between nations (Mousseau, 2013; see also Nieman, 2015). The only matter in controversy is whether democracy has any observable impact on peace between nations after consideration of contractualist economy. My investigation begins below with the allegation of measurement error.

AT: DETERRENCE DA

DEMS DON’T SUPPORT DENUCLEARIZATION ENOUGH FOR IT TO MATTER – 2020 NDAA PROVES

Collina 19 [Tom Z. Collina, policy director for the Ploughshares Fund, a nuclear policy awareness nonprofit organization, 12-12-2019, "Democrats Retreat on Nuclear Policy," Defense One, https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/12/democrats-retreat-nuclear-policy/161855/ ] /Triumph Debate

Question: How do you go from a National Defense Authorization Act that in July was opposed by every House Republican to one that was approved by more GOP votes than Democratic ones and that President Donald Trump

called a huge win that he cannot wait to sign? Answer: Add Space Force and parental family leave and take out all of the progressive national security provisions . The House passed the compromise NDAA last night; President

Trump has said he will sign it. This final bill is a world apart from the version passed by House Democrats in July.

The House version, ably led by Rep. Adam Smith, D-Washington, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, prohibited deployment of Trump’s new “low-yield” nuclear weapon for Trident submarines, which defense experts called “a gateway

to nuclear catastrophe.” It prohibited unauthorized U.S. military action against Iran, which Trump came within 10 minutes of ordering in June, and prohibited U.S. military support for the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen. And

it supported extension of the New START treaty, which Trump seems to have every intention of sacking even though Russia

supports keeping the crucial pact. The list goes on. In other words, the House bill would have constrained the most

dangerous tendencies of an out-of-control White House. This is exactly what you would expect Democrats to do when faced with a President that they firmly believe is a danger to U.S. national security—and are now seeking to impeach on that basis. Not surprisingly,

Republicans do not share this impression of the President, and they deeply opposed the nuclear policy provisions in the House NDAA. “From the moment we passed our bill through the House without the support of a single Republican vote, it was clear that our counterparts in the Senate and White House fundamentally opposed the Democratic priorities included in the bill,” Smith said. The Senate version of the bill, drafted by the GOP,

included none of these priorities . When the two bills went to conference, the process went dark with no open meetings or votes. Smith was left to work out the details with Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Oklahoma; Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island; and

Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas. Then the trouble began. First, whereas Republicans were united on their priorities, the

Democrats were not. Sen. Reed did not agree with many of Rep. Smith’s nuclear policies and apparently did not support him in the conference when the GOP conferees moved to axe the provisions. Smith was out-voted by the two Republicans and Reed. Simply put, the

Republicans wanted to kill the nuclear provisions more than the Dem ocrats wanted to save them. Second,

the Democratic leadership had other , higher priorities that went beyond defense policy . For example, Rep.

Smith committed himself early on to reaching bipartisan agreement on the NDAA and having it passed by

Congress and signed by Trump. Once he announced this intention, he lost much of his negotiating leverage. The GOP could threaten to walk away and let the talks collapse. Smith could not. Moreover, in the context of impeachment, the

Democrats were determined to show that they could still govern by passing bills like the NDAA. Finally, the Democratic leadership had its own specific policy priorities: paid parental leave, “widow’s tax” repeal, and PFAS (toxic chemicals). The

outcome was a disaster. The topline budget rose to $738 billion and the major constraints on Trump were ripped out. Others were watered down. The most we can say about the final NDAA is that it includes some useful language on arms control and missile defense, but nothing major. Such weak tea certainly does not justify supporting a bill that funds Trump’s excessive $2 trillion program to rebuild the nuclear arsenal, among other things. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-California, a member of the House Armed Services Committee and a vice-chair of the progressive caucus issued a joint statement with Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont, a presidential candidate, calling the final agreement “a bill of astonishing

moral cowardice.” Over 30 progressive national security organizations (including Ploughshares Fund) sent a letter to Congress opposing the final bill as doing “almost nothing to constrain the Trump administration’s erratic and reckless foreign policy.” Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said she would oppose the bill, calling it a “$738 billion Christmas present to giant defense contractors.”

AT: INEQUALITY / US = OLIGARCHY

US ISN’T AN OLIGARCHY – POLICY PREFERENCES MATCHUP BETWEEN THE MAJORITY AND ECONOMIC ELITES

Matthews 16 [Dylan Matthews, Senior Correspondent for Vox, 5-9-2016, "Remember that study saying America is an oligarchy? 3 rebuttals say it's wrong.," Vox, https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-study ] /Triumph Debate

In 2014, a slew of headlines seemed to confirm what many had long suspected — that the rich were actually the ones in control and the rest of us chumps were just along for the ride: "Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy"; "Princeton Study: US No Longer An Actual Democracy"; "Study: You Have 'Near-Zero' Impact on US Policy"; "Study: Politicians listen to rich people, not you"; "Rich people rule!" All of these stories were about a study by political scientists Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern, modestly titled, "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens." Their conclusion was explosive: "Economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence." The paper soon went viral as proof that America is an "oligarchy" (the press's term, not theirs) where the views of the rich control what happens and the views of the middle class are ignored. The authors were even on The Daily Show — not bad for academics without so much as a book to promote: There's only one problem:

Research published since then has raised serious questions about this paper , both its finding and its analysis. This is, of course, how normal science works; some academics put a finding out there, and their peers pick it apart. But the study has become a frequently invoked piece of evidence in debates about money in politics, and the public and political debate has not kept up with the scholarly one. And the latest scholarly critiques suggest that while the rich certainly have more political influence than the middle class,

ordinary Americans still win a substantial share of the time, even when the affluent oppose them. America is an imperfect democracy, in other words — but it's hardly an oligarchy. When the rich and middle class disagree, each wins about half the time Since its initial release, the Gilens/Page paper's findings have been targeted in three separate debunkings. Cornell professor Peter Enns, recent Princeton PhD graduate Omar Bashir, and a team of three researchers — UT Austin grad student J. Alexander Branham, University of Michigan professor Stuart Soroka, and UT professor Christopher Wlezien — have all taken a look at Gilens and Page's underlying data and found that their analysis doesn't hold up. Gilens and Page used a database of 1,779 policy issues — which included data on the opinions of median-income Americans, the rich, business interests, and non-business interest groups like unions or the National Rifle Association — to determine whose

opinions correlated most closely with actual government policy. But the researchers critiquing the paper found that middle-income Americans and rich Americans actually agree on an overwhelming majority of topics. Out of the 1,779 bills in the Gilens/Page data set, majorities of the rich and middle class agree on 1,594; there are 616 bills

both groups oppose and 978 bills both groups favor. That means the groups agree on 89.6 percent of bills.

That leaves only 185 bills on which the rich and the middle class disagree, and even there the disagreements are small. On average, the groups' opinion gaps on the 185 bills is 10.9 percentage points; so, say, 45 percent of the middle class might support a bill while 55.9 percent of the rich support it. Bashir and Branham/Soroka/Wlezien

find that on these 185 bills, the rich got their preferred outcome 53 percent of the time and the middle class got what they wanted 47 percent of the time . The difference between the two is not statistically significant. And there are some funny examples in the list of middle-class victories. For instance, the middle class got what they wanted on public financing of elections: in all three 1990s surveys included in the Gilens data, they opposed it, while the rich favor it. That matches up with

more recent research showing that wealthy people are more supportive of public election funding. So it's hard to say definitively, based on this data, that the rich are getting what they want more than the middle class . And it's hard to claim, as Gilens and Page do, that "ordinary citizens get what they want from government only when they happen to agree with elites or interest groups that are

really calling the shots." Even when they disagree with elites, ordinary citizens get what they want about half the time. Branham, Soroka, and Wlezien also look at which specific issues spur disagreement: Do they fall down on ideological lines? Sort of, but not dramatically so. The authors find that the middle class got 26 liberal policy wins (either a bill they supported passing or one they opposed getting blocked), 20 conservative wins, and 29 ideologically neutral wins. The rich got 28 liberal

wins, 26 conservative wins, and 37 neutral wins. The rich's wins are slightly more conservative on average, but not hugely so. Okay, but maybe those conservative wins for the rich were all on issues that mattered most to the rich. Maybe the middle class

wins occasionally on social issues, but the rich succeed in preventing redistribution and other economic policies they don't like. Again, not

really. The researchers found the rich’s win rate for economic issues where there's disagreement is 57.1

percent, compared with 51.1 percent for social issues. There's a difference, but not a robust one. "The win rates for the

two issue types are not statistically different from one another," Branham, Soroka, and Wlezien conclude. They also looked at the views of the poor — those at the 10th percentile of the income scale. Here, too, there's lots of agreement. The poor, middle class, and rich agree on 80.2 percent of policies. But here they find more evidence for differences in income-based representation. Bills supported just by the rich but not the poor or middle class passed 38.5 percent of the time, and those supported by just the middle class passed 37.5 percent. But policies supported by the poor and no one else passed a mere 18.6 percent of the time. "These results suggest that the rich and middle are effective at blocking policies that the poor want," the authors conclude.

AT: CV UNCONSTITUTIONAL

IT DOESN’T VIOLATE THE FIRST AMENDMENT – IT PASSES THE INTERMEDIATE SCRUTINY TEST

See 7 [M See, 12-2007, “THE CASE FOR COMPULSORY VOTING IN THE UNITED STATES,” Harvard Law Review, https://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/compulsory_voting.pdf] /Triumph Debate

Unlike some rights, the First Amendment right to free speech does imply an inverse right not to be compelled to speak. Sometimes remaining silent is a statement itself. The choice not to vote can be a political statement, subject to First Amendment protection,63 and compulsory voting

inhibits this statement. According to this argument, by forcing the nonvoting population into conformity with the set of choices that they get at the polls, we are silencing the more informative statement they make by not participating. Not only does this silencing raise First Amendment concerns, but it also raises doubts about how compulsory voting can make government more representative if certain voters feel better represented by staying out of the electoral process

altogether. The constitutional validity of this First Amendment argument is doubtful.64 The expressive function of elections is secondary to their function in selecting government leaders.65 The Supreme Court has “repeatedly upheld reasonable , politically neutral reg ulation s that have the effect of channel ing expressive activity at the polls.”66 The Court has specifically upheld limited burdens on the right to vote for the candidate of one’s choosing in declaring that a state’s prohibition of voting for write-in candidates was valid.67 A compulsory voting regime differs from a prohibition on write-in votes, however, because it does more than just limit choice — compulsory voting literally compels a choice of some kind. The Supreme Court recognized an individual right not to be compelled by the government to express an idea that one does not agree with in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. 68 Requiring someone to

vote for a particular cause or candidate would clearly violate the First Amendment, but requiring someone to vote for the candidate of his or her choosing is viewpoint neutral .69 A person is not being forced to express any particular viewpoint when a law requires him to cast a vote for someone of his own choosing — anyone really, given the opportunity to vote for a write-in candidate , which exists in most states.70 Viewpoint-neutral laws trigger an intermediate level of scrutiny.71 Although there have been several formulations of the intermediate

scrutiny test in the First Amendment context,72 the key elements of the test are that the law must further a substantial government interest and that it must be narrowly tailored to serve that interest.73 C ompulsory v oting laws serve the interest of improving and legitimizing democratic government , which this Note assumes would qualify as substantial. More complicated is the requirement of narrow tailoring. A c ompulsory v oting regime could be narrowly tailored by allowing people to abstain (submitting a ballot without registering a vote), or perhaps

to obtain a “conscientious objector” exemption from even submitting a ballot.74 This exemption would satisfy the requirement of narrow tailoring because it would leave open the same opportunities for expression that exist under the current system of v oluntary v oting .75 Such an exemption could be made available to anyone who fills out a simple form and is willing to sign a statement indicating that he or she chooses not to vote for political or religious reasons. This requirement would at least ensure that those who are not voting are doing so as a matter of political expression or religious belief and not because of the collective action problem inherent in voting.76 While any compulsory voting proposal

would probably need to have a conscientious objector exemption in order to be politically palatable, the value of the statements individuals make by not voting is actually quite limited. If not voting is meant to be a statement of dissatisfaction with the candidates and their policies, then it is not a very effective one. First, the option of voting for a

write-in candidate gives people choices beyond the candidates listed on the ballot. Second, even if a person does not particularly like any of the candidates, dissatisfaction is not the same as indifference. Many nonvoters presumably have some preference as to which candidate is elected even if none of the candidates is an ideal choice. If a potential voter is truly indifferent, then being forced to cast a vote for one or another candidate is no better or worse to that person than abstaining. There may be other political statements that people make

by not voting, such as questioning the legitimacy of democratic government.77 There are, of course, many other outlets through which these statements can be made. Nevertheless, including a conscientious objector exemption

in a compulsory voting regime can effectively subdue concerns about curbing political expression while still

remedying the collective action problem of voting

AT: POLITICAL POLARIZATION

COMPULSORY VOTING WON’T SOLVE POLARIZATION – AUSTRALIA PROVES

Moss 18 [Daniel Moss, columnist for Bloomberg, 11-8-2018, "Mandatory Voting Won’t Cure Political Polarization," Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-08/mandatory-voting-won-t-cure-political-polarization ] /Triumph Debate

Compulsory voting would make everything better, right? Each U.S. election generates ample moaning about the outsized influence of the relatively activist people who come out to vote, and wistful thoughts about how to do things better. This is amplified

in the era of Donald Trump, Brexit and the rise of far-right parties in Europe. Invariably, people point to Australia, where voting is mandatory and shirkers are fined. Wouldn’t this bring out all the reasonable, centrist types who don’t otherwise make it to the polls? Couldn’t everyone then achieve political and economic nirvana, with no more recessions, populist dysfunction or legislative gridlock?

Sorry to break it to you: It’s an illusion. Granted, Australia has some inspired leaders, such as Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe. But its two-party system is under great strain. Minor and fringe parties are attract ing more support , some

peddling cultural grievances and anti-globalist ideology. There’s also a wide ning split between how urban and rural residents view the world. Australia isn’t the only country with compulsory voting. Another big one is

Brazil, which has a history of military rule and just elected far-right tough guy Jair Bolsonaro as president. No role

model there. Compulsory voting might mask troubling trends, but it doesn’t make them go away. In Australia’s

2016 federal election, minor parties received more votes than at any time since W orld W ar II . The country has also

had two governments with no majority in the House of Representatives in the past decade. When the ruling group must depend on small parties or a gaggle of independents to pass bills, running the nation is a tricky

business. The inability to present a distinct governing or national narrative leaves voters disillusioned. Even in the

absence of a recession, Australia has gone through five p rime m inister s since 2007 (depending on how you do the

math). Prosperity doesn’t appear to lead to greater consensus: As John Daley from the Grattan Institute has noted, support for minor political parties has jumped during periods of strong wage growth. Not all the minor players are wing nuts. Most of the independents who matter in the House of Representatives are pretty mainstream in their views. Their presence reflects a growing distaste for the two main

party blocs, which broadly resemble the Republican and Democratic parties in the U.S. But in the Senate , voters are in full-scale revolt. The upper chamber is fertile ground for nativists , populists and talk-radio hosts. In a recent study, titled “A Crisis of Trust, the Rise of Protest Politics in Australia,” Daley and co-author Danielle Wood write that the fringe groups have little coherent to say on economics or inequality, usually cited as wellsprings of their support. If there’s a common notion, it’s — brace yourself — a “drain the swamp” mentality. A perceived loss of cultural identity has also driven the urban-rural divide and made immigration and trade easy targets. In

short, c ompulsory v oting is no magic elixir. It certainly hasn’t prevented polarization in Australia . Look deeper for a cure.

AT: POPULISM

THERE’S NO IMPACT TO POPULISM – AT WORST, IT BOLSTERS DEMOCRACY BY SHINING THE LIGHT ON STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS WITHIN GOVERNMENTS – IT ALSO SOLVES RESENTMENT, CORRUPTION, AND LOW VOTER TURNOUT

BeRtoa et al. 18 [Fernando Casal BeRtoa, Nottingham Research fellow, Nic Cheeseman, Professor of democracy at the University of Birmingham, Lise Storm, Research Fellow of politics at the University of Nottingham, and Susan Dodsworth, Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, 05-24-2018, "How populism can be turned into an opportunity, not a threat", Conversation, https://theconversation.com/how-populism-can-be-turned-into-an-opportunity-not-a-threat-96934 ] /Triumph Debate

Around the world, populism is on the march. The election of Donald Trump and the UK’s vote for Brexit triggered a crisis of faith in democratic institutions. And populists have been victorious in other countries including Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Andrej Babiš in the Czech Republic, and Recep Tayyib Erdoğan in Turkey. Italy has now joined the ranks after a coalition deal was struck between the far-right

Northern League and the populist Five Star Movement. The elections that elevated these leaders and movements have been met with shock and horror by large sections of global society, and particularly the world’s democratic establishments. They are commonly depicted as not just part of a global phenomenon, but an existential threat to representative democracy itself. In a recent opinion piece for the Financial Times, commentator Martin Wolff described populism as the “enemy” of democracy, explaining that it could “destroy independent institutions, undermine civil peace, promote xenophobia and lead to dictatorship”. Similarly, the scholar Yascha Mounk warned that the current populist moment might become a populist age, “and cast the very survival of liberal democracy in doubt”. Yet

these authors are missing something crucial. Populism isn’t necessarily a threat to democracy – it can also be an opportunity. To explain why, we need to recognise that there are many different varieties of populism in different places. And some of them are potentially much less problematic than others. Seizing the day Philippe C. Schmitter, one of the world’s foremost experts on comparative democratisation, has argued that populism is a product not just of dysfunctional political institutions, but of the broader environment in which those institutions are embedded. This implies that in different environments, populism will be driven by different forces and will manifest in distinct ways. In short, it won’t look the same everywhere. There are plenty of examples to back up Schmitter’s argument. In Europe, voters are disgusted at deep economic crisis combined with the cartel-like nature of traditional political parties. But whereas most

recent European populism has typically been right-wing and linked to anti-immigration parties and movements, in Africa and the Middle

East, it has typically had a more left-wing (or perhaps more accurately “pro-poor”) flavour, railing against government corruption and incompetence. This focus reflects the fact that populist leadership in Africa has been facilitated by a very different set

of developments. Citizens have experienced rapid urbanisation, and are disillusioned with democracy as they’ve

experienced it to date. And instead of economic crisis or recession, they have seen rapid economic growth that has done nothing to alleviate dire inequality. These regional variations shape the nature and impact of populism in other important ways. European populism is typically viewed as problematic partly because it promotes divisive messages and emphasises racial

divisions. By contrast, African populists often build strong mulity-ethnic support bases . While it’s not guaranteed, in societies that are deeply divided along ethnic lines, populism could in fact reduce conflict by turning political debate away from issues of identity . Instead, populism can shine a light on the weaknesses of existing political systems. It can make clear which communities feel excluded from the mainstream , and

it can expose the genuine failings of the status quo. In many African and Middle Eastern countries, inequality has risen in part because governments have refused to make policies that would redistribute wealth from the rich to

the poor. In these countries, populism can be a corrective force, challenging democratic governments’ complacency and countering multiparty politics’s tendency to marginalise minorities. Another way is possible

Populist movements and parties can also help bring younger people into politics – something many democratic countries find conspicuously difficult. Research tells us that voting is habit-forming: people who vote today are much more likely to vote in the future, improving political representation in the long run. The challenge for democrats, of course, is to persuade these new voters to work to reform the system, not to overthrow it in favour of something less

democratic. Populist movements have the potential to bring people disenchanted with mainstream politics back into a national conversation, in the process overcoming their sense of alienation – and by the same token,

damping their attraction to extremist groups. However, this depends on the extent to which populist movements can be brought into the political system. Where populists set up parties and run for public office, this is relatively straightforward. But that’s not always

what happens. In some post-Soviet states, distrust of established parties has seen many citizens express their political preferences not by backing political parties, but by turn ing to civil society organisations such as the rise of legal reform and anti-corruption bodies in countries such as Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine. Many of these organisations do not resemble political parties, or indeed want to turn into them. Not all of them can truly claim to represent citizens; some are genuine but have only tenuous roots in wider society, while others are merely vehicles for obtaining foreign aid. But while still short of political

parties running for office, populist organisations that are genuinely embedded in society have a big part to play. They can help renew democracy by offering citizens are more diverse set of channels through which to engage with the political world – at least, if a mechanism can be found to reconnect them with the formal political process.

AT: POPULISM

POPULISM IS INEVITABLE GIVEN CLIMATE CHANGE AND HOW IT HAS BECOME EMBEDDED IN INSTITUTIONS

Serhan 20 [Yasmeen Serhan, staff writer for the Atlantic with a BA from the University of Southern California, 1-6-2020, "Populism Is Morphing in Insidious Ways," Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/01/future-populism-2020s/604393/ ] /Triumph Debate

One would be hard-pressed to find a region of the world that populism didn’t touch in the 2010s. The decade brought us the election of Donald Trump in the United States and the Brexit vote in Britain. It witnessed the rise of the Alternative for Germany—the first far-right party to enter the country’s national parliament in decades—as well as the ascent of populist parties in countries such as Austria, Brazil, Italy, India, Indonesia, and Poland. By 2018, as many as 20 populist leaders held executive office around the world.Populism took many (often overlapping) forms in the 2010s. Some countries experienced a socioeconomic version, pitting the working class against Big Business and cosmopolitan elites regarded as benefiting from the international capitalist system (as seen in places such as France and the United States). Others saw a cultural form thrive, focusing on issues of national identity, immigration, and race (as was the case in Germany and India). Perhaps the most common was anti-establishment populism, which pits “the people” against the political elites and the mainstream parties they represent. These forms are likely to

continue into the new decade, though the main issue at play will probably shift from immigration to climate change,

populist promises will become policy, and democratic institutions will be put even further to the test . If the 2010s were the years in which predominantly far-right, populist parties permeated the political mainstream, then the 2020s will be when voters “are going to see the consequences of that,” Daphne

Halikiopoulou, an associate professor of comparative politics at the University of Reading, in England, told me. In some ways, they already have. In Britain, the 2016 vote to leave the European Union—and the political fallout it caused—is likely to be fulfilled at the end of January, following Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s resounding victory in last month’s general election. Elsewhere, populist parties have already made their impact—if not through passing legislation at the head of government, then by applying pressure in opposition. Though this populist phenomenon rose to international consciousness in the past decade, its roots in fact stretch back further. In Austria, the right-wing Freedom Party served in a governing coalition from 2000 to 2005. During that same period, Britain’s U.K. Independence Party was on the ascent. In France, the far-right National Front advanced to the runoff of the 2002 presidential election (an achievement the party, which has since been renamed the National Rally, replicated in 2017). Countless other populist leaders already held power in countries such as Bolivia,

Israel, and Hungary. What the 2010s did , however, was give populist parties the ecosystem they needed to thrive —due to, among other things, the consequences of the 2008 global financial crash and the digital revolution. While

the former contributed to greater inequality and the rejection of mainstream parties that were perceived to be perpetuating it, the latter resulted in the “transformation of … everyday life,” Catherine Fieschi, the executive director of the London-based consultancy Counterpoint and the author of Populocracy: The Tyranny of Authenticity and the Rise of

Populism, told me. “We’ve become much more impatient; we don’t understand why things aren’t always just a click away. If Amazon Prime can do it, why can’t [the government] revamp the benefit system more quickly?” In the 2020s, we will likely see many of the same characters who defined the previous decade remain at the fore.

Italy’s Matteo Salvini, the leader of the far-right and nativist League party, has pledged to return to government as prime minister—and, if

successful, to forge alliances with like-minded leaders, including Johnson and Trump. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has signaled that he will press forward with his quest to further his Hindu-nationalist agenda—including defending his contentious Citizenship Amendment Act, which has spurred weeks of protests. In France, the National Rally, still buoyant after its European Parliament victory last spring, is setting its sights on consolidating local support through the country’s upcoming municipal elections. Whereas much of the past decade revolved

around arguments over issues of immigration and sovereignty, the 2020s could be dominated by a new , more pressing narrative: climate change. “The environment is going to become a very salient dimension of contestation,” Halikiopoulou said, noting

that though political fragmentation across Europe led to an uptick in support for far-right populist parties, it also resulted in a surge for green parties in countries such as Germany and France. These parties will have to contend with figures such as

Trump and populist parties in Europe, which have expressed open skepticism about climate change, branding it an elitist hoax or, at the least, an issue for which the establishment has promoted policies that disproportionately harm the poor. In this way, populist arguments about climate change resemble those about immigration. The populist argument was that “you have a liberal elite that has everything to gain from letting in lots of immigrants,” Fieschi said. “Climate policy and the Green New Deal ... is being depicted as the next

way for the elite to screw over ordinary people.” Even if the core issue changes, though, the test to liberal democracy will remain: Across Europe, populist leaders have displayed their willingness to tread over democratic institutions in order to see their political agendas realized—from Viktor Orbán’s crackdowns on academic and press freedom in Hungary to the right-wing populist Law and Justice party’s efforts to overhaul the state media and judiciary in Poland. As populist parties gain a stronger foothold, the 2020s could see more of the same. When I asked Fieschi and Halikiopoulou whether this decade could see voters become as disillusioned with populist parties as they became with their more mainstream counterparts in the past one, both said it was possible—but unlikely, at least in the short term. “It’s going

to be a very long-term thing to experience the disillusionment from a government that has failed you,” Halikiopoulou said. And even if voters do become dissatisfied with populist parties, Fieschi said, it doesn’t mean a return to the politics of the early 2000s. “There is no normal to go back to.”

AT: INEQUALITY / US = OLIGARCHY THOMPSON 20 [DEREK THOMPSON, ECONOMICS STAFF WRITER FOR THE ATLANTIC, 3-20-2020, "THE CORONAVIRUS WILL BE A CATASTROPHE FOR THE POOR," ATLANTIC, HTTPS://WEB.ARCHIVE.ORG/WEB/20200401000432/HTTPS://WWW.THEATLANTIC.COM/IDEAS/ARCHIVE/ 2020/03/CORONAVIRUS-WILL-SUPERCHARGE-AMERICAN-INEQUALITY/608419/]/TRIUMPH DEBATE

ONE CENTURY LATER, HISTORY IS RHYMING. THE PANDEMIC NOW BULLDOZING THROUGH THE UNITED STATES WILL , IN ITS OWN WAY, BE ESPECIALLY PUNISHING FOR LOW-INCOME WORKERS , JUST AS THEY WERE STARTING TO REVERSE A GENERATION OF WIDENING

INEQUALITY . NOBODY SHOULD CONFUSE 2020 FOR THE HEIGHT OF THE 20TH-CENTURY PROGRESSIVE ERA, BUT THE PAST FEW YEARS SAW PRECIOUS GAINS FOR POOR ER WORKERS . IN LATE 2019, WAGES IN LOW-INCOME INDUSTRIES WERE GROWING FASTER THAN AT ANY TIME IN THE PREVIOUS 20 YEARS . THIS ACHIEVEMENT WAS THE RESULT OF MINIMUM-WAGE HIKES ACROSS THE COUNTRY (A HUGE WIN FOR LABOR GROUPS, WHOSE GOALS ONCE SEEMED IMPOSSIBLE) AND HISTORICALLY LOW UNEMPLOYMENT . THE U.S.

ECONOMY HAD ADDED JOBS FOR MORE THAN 100 CONSECUTIVE MONTHS , THE LONGEST STREAK ON RECORD , BRINGING THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE FOR BLACK AND LATINO WORKERS DOWN TO ITS LOWEST IN U .S . HISTORY . THE FEDERAL SAFETY NET WAS , ARGUABLY, AS STRONG AS IT HAD BEEN IN HALF A CENTURY , THANKS TO THE PASSAGE OF THE A FFORDABLE C ARE A CT. ACCORDING TO THE C ONGRESSIONAL B UDGET O FFICE’S DECEMBER 2019 REPORT ON HOUSEHOLD INCOME , FEDERAL TAX -AND-TRANSFER POLICY WAS DOING MORE TO REDUCE INCOME INEQUALITY THAN AT ANY OTHER TIME ON RECORD , GOING BACK TO AT LEAST 1979. THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC IS POISED TO HALT THIS PROGRESSIVE MOMENTUM . ACCORDING TO THE WHITE HOUSE, UNEMPLOYMENT COULD HIT 20 PERCENT IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS. THAT MEANS THE VIRUS MAY SWING THE ECONOMY FROM THE LOWEST UNEMPLOYMENT RATE SINCE THE 1950S TO THE HIGHEST RATE SINCE THE 1930S . ACCORDING TO JP MORGAN ANALYSTS, GDP COULD DECLINE IN THE SECOND QUARTER BY 14 PERCENT . IF THEY’RE RIGHT, THE ECONOMY WILL LURCH FROM THE LONGEST EXPANSION ON RECORD TO THE WORST QUARTERLY GDP DECLINE ON RECORD . LIKE 102 YEARS AGO, THIS WAVE OF THE PANDEMIC WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY DISPROPORTIONATELY PUNISH THE POOR —NOT ONLY BY ARRESTING THE LONG RECOVERY SINCE THE GREAT RECESSION , BUT ALSO BY SPECIFICALLY TARGET ING INDUSTRIES WHERE WORKERS ARE MOST VULNERABLE AND HAVE THE LEAST PROTECTION . “ONE MONTH COULD WIPE OUT 10 YEARS OF PROGRESS ,” IN

THE FIGHT AGAINST INEQUALITY , MARK MURO , A SENIOR FELLOW AT THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION, SAID . “A HUGE SERVICE- SECTOR RECESSION IS COMING , AND WE’RE TALKING ABOUT MORE THAN 10 MILLION JOBS AT RISK THAT ARE OFTEN LOW- WAGE , LOW-BENEFIT , OR TIP-BASED .” GROUND ZERO FOR THE PANDEMIC’S THREAT TO THE LABOR FORCE ARE THE FACE-TO-FACE SERVICES AND LEISURE ECONOMY , MUCH OF WHICH HAVE BEEN FORCIBLY SHUT DOWN BY GOVERNMENTS TO PREVENT THE SPREAD

OF THE VIRUS. ONLINE RESERVATIONS FOR RESTAURANTS IN LOS ANGELES, SAN FRANCISCO, AND WASHINGTON, D.C., HAVE DECLINED TO ZERO . THE LARGEST HOTEL IN N EW Y ORK C ITY, THE HILTON MIDTOWN ON SIXTH AVENUE, IS CLOSING ITS 1,878 ROOMS

INDEFINITELY , FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. DISNEYLAND IS EMPTY , AND THE CASINOS THAT HAD ALWAYS LIT THE LAS VEGAS STRIP HAVE GONE DARK . THE WORKERS IN THESE SECTORS—SALESPEOPLE, WAITERS, HOTEL DESK CLERKS, GROUNDSKEEPERS, MAIDS, AND ENTERTAINMENT ATTENDANTS —HAVE A FEW THINGS IN COMMON : FIRST, THEIR AVERAGE ANNUAL WAGES ARE LESS THAN $30,000 , INCLUDING TIP S, ACCORDING TO THE B UREAU OF L ABOR S TATISTICS. (THE TYPICAL ANNUAL WAGE FOR A

FULL-TIME WORKER IN THE U.S. IS ABOUT $47,000 .) SECOND, THEY HAVE THE FEW EST LABOR PROTECTIONS , SUCH AS PAID SICK LEAVE , AND IN MANY CASES THEIR TIPS DON’T COUNT AS INCOME WHEN THEY APPLY FOR UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE . THIRD, THEY CAN’T DO THEIR WORK FROM HOME . REMOTE WORK IS THE LABOR MARKET’S ONLY REMEDY AGAINST THE VIRUS WHILE AMERICANS ARE IN MASS LOCKDOWN. THERE IS STILL SO MUCH WE DON’T KNOW, INCLUDING EXACTLY HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL LOSE THEIR JOBS IN THE NEXT

FEW MONTHS. MARK ZANDI, THE CHIEF ECONOMIST AT MOODY’S ANALYTICS , HAS SAID THAT 18 PERCENT OF THE LABOR FORCE IS AT “HIGH-RISK ”—MORE THAN 25 MILLION JOBS . THAT MIGHT SOUND EXTREME, BUT A RECENT NPR/PBS POLL FOUND THAT BY MARCH

14, EXACTLY 18 PERCENT OF RESPONDENTS SAID THEY HAD ALREADY BEEN LET GO OR HAD THEIR HOURS REDUCED . FOR AMERICANS MAKING LESS THAN $50,000 , THE NUMBER SPIKED TO 25 PERCENT . WHAT SEEMS MORE CERTAIN IS THAT THE EFFECTS OF THE PANDEMIC WILL REMAIN WITH THE U.S. FOR GENERATIONS . IT MAY SUPERCHARGE INEQUALITY IN THE

SHORT TERM. EVENTUALLY, HOWEVER, THE PANDEMIC MAY GIVE BIRTH TO A NEW KIND OF SOCIALIZED THINKING IN AMERICA THAT DEMANDS UNIVERSAL INSURANCE AND SICK LEAVE FOR ALL, NOT JUST THE WHITE-COLLAR REMOTE-WORK CLASS. FOR EXAMPLE, MURO BELIEVES THAT NATIONAL PAID LEAVE, IF IT BECOMES LAW, WILL LIKELY BE EXPANDED, BECAUSE OFFERING PAID LEAVE TO CORONAVIRUS PATIENTS IN 2020 ONLY TO YANK IT AWAY FROM CANCER PATIENTS IN 2021 WOULD BE TOO INCONGRUOUS. WHEN THE 1918 INFLUENZA PANDEMIC RETURNED FOR ITS SECOND AND THIRD WAVES, IT DIDN’T TARGET LOW-INCOME WORKERS ANYMORE. IT SIMPLY KILLED EVERYONE—LABORERS AND BOSSES, MEN AND WOMEN. IN THE LONG RUN, A VIRUS DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN THE RICH AND THE POOR. AT SOME POINT, THEN, THE QUESTION MUST BE ASKED OF AMERICA’S POLITICAL LEADERS: WHY DO WE?

AT: PAKISTAN

ALT CAUSE TO PAKISTAN DEMOCRACY – COVID-19 AND CMR

Afzal 20 [Madiha Afzal, Fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings specializing in the political economy and security of Pakistan, and assistant professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, 8-6-2020, "The pandemic deals a blow to Pakistan’s democracy," Brookings, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/08/06/the-pandemic-deals-a-blow-to-pakistans-democracy/ ] /Triumph Debate

Khan’s strident tactics in the past as an opposition politician haven’t helped him now that he’s in power, in terms of dealing with the current opposition. During a sit-in that lasted for weeks in 2014, Khan clamored for Nawaz Sharif’s ouster every night while standing on a shipping

container, and some say he is reaping what he sowed. But part of the problem is also the structure of c ivilian -m ilitary r elations in Pakistan: Pakistan’s powerful military relies on performance legitimacy for itself , but also for civilian governments , and quickly loses patience with them once their performance falters . The military does not wait for the civilians to be voted out but progressively asserts control, or pushes for their ouster , as it did in the 1990s, destabilizing Pakistan’s entire democratic enterprise. In this playbook, opposition parties

often work as pawns for the military, willing to go beyond parliament — such as with “multi-party conferences” or

back-room deals — to destabilize the incumbent government. In recent weeks, the current opposition parties, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), have fit right into those prescribed roles. The public, too, has become accustomed to this cycle, and begins to lose patience during a government’s

term rather than waiting for elections. When it comes to Pakistan, stories of the military’s growing control may seem to blur into each other. Is anything different this time? Khan was the military’s favored candidate in the 2018 election, and it paved the path to his election. He has gone out of his way to be accommodating to the military , including by extending the current army chief’s tenure. For a time after his election, it seemed that Khan’s closeness with the

military might give him the space to implement the domestic policies that he wanted. It seems that period is over. Khan is now clearly

constrained by a military whose role has grown progressively through Khan’s term in office and has expanded to the ambit of domestic policy during the pandemic. (Khan’s aides deny this, saying that Khan is still “calling the shots,” with the army’s support — a repetition of Khan’s mantra that they are “on the same page.”) WITHER PROVINCIAL AUTONOMY? When Khan let the coronavirus response fall to provincial governments this spring, it briefly seemed as if the pandemic might actually help democratic consolidation in Pakistan. Instead, it has opened up a largely unconstructive and inconclusive debate on problems with provincial autonomy and the 18th constitutional amendment that granted it — with those critical of the law pushing back against the initial provincial control of the virus response. Some of the criticisms of the 18th amendment are warranted, but it is no secret that the military doesn’t like the law, which in taking power away from the federal level threatens the military’s power and finances. The provincial autonomy that defined Pakistan’s initial pandemic response is now firmly in the hands of the National Command and Operation Center and the National Coordination

Committee. ILLIBERALISM REIGNS The military’s increasing control has also translated to a crackdown on dissent and freedom of the press — a matter on which Khan’s government is studiously quiet. On July 21, a

prominent journalist critical of the military and the government , Matiullah Jan, was abducted in Islamabad in broad daylight. He was released that night after an international outcry. In a statement, he said his abduction was the work of forces

that are “against democracy.” And this is not to mention concerns about how intelligence agencies are using militant tracking technologies to trace coronavirus patients and their contacts, and the disturbing potential to use that

tracing to crack down further on critical voices. Pakistan’s provincial governments have also used this time to indulge in illiberal impulses, seemingly taking advantage of a permissive environment to do so. In Punjab , the legislative assembly passed a bill to “protect the foundations of Islam,” by giving the province’s director general of

public relations the power to ban any books in the province — published locally or imported — that he or she sees as against the “national interest.” In a similar vein, the head of the Punjab textbook board began banning textbooks chosen by private schools for “anti-Pakistan” or “blasphemous” content — citing objections that the

books include Mahatma Gandhi’s quotes or photos of pigs in math equations. Both developments are clearly

regressive, a blow to freedoms in Pakistan. PAKISTAN’S CIVILIAN-MILITARY GAMES CONTINUE, AND DEMOCRACY LOSES OUT Last week, the state minister for health in Pakistan, a political appointee, resigned, citing political pressure and opposition criticism. Amid the pandemic this summer, Pakistan’s usual civilian-military games continue, with an empowered military and opposition parties all too willing to play the game to help weaken the ruling party. Khan’s political space has now been constricted as much as previous prime ministers, with one

difference: He is apparently more willing to cede space to the military for his political preservation. In Pakistan, as in some other countries, the longer-term loser of the pandemic is becoming clear, and it is its democracy.

AT: GENDER QUOTAS

GENDER QUOTAS FAIL – BRAZIL PROVES

Moura 14 [Paula Moura, journalist for NPR, 10-10-2014, "Do Quotas for Female Politicians Work?," Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/10/do-quotas-for-female-politicians-work/381320/ ] /Triumph Debate

This year, for the first time in Brazil’s history, two women—incumbent President Dilma Rousseff and former environment minister Marina Silva—had a serious chance of winning the presidency. Marina, who sought the country’s highest office after the death of her running mate in

August, ultimately fell short, coming in third in voting this week behind Dilma and Aécio Neves, who now enter a runoff. But the achievements of Dilma, Brazil’s first female president, and Marina, who would have been Brazil’s first black female president,

do not reflect broader gains by women in the general election on Sunday. In this year’s presidential, gubernatorial, and legislative races, the number of female candidates for the first time reached 30 percent—the level defined by a quota law, implemented in the mid-1990s, that specifies the minimum percentage of each gender who must be on party lists in legislative elections. Still, these candidates didn’t win their races in similar numbers; women will occupy only 10 percent of seats in the new National Congress, or only six more seats than the total following the last two elections . No woman was elected as a state governor, though

one is competing in a second round of voting in Roraima state. In the last election in 2010, two women were elected governor. All this at a time when women voted in unprecedented numbers, representing 52 percent of the 143 million Brazilians who went to the polls this week. What explains the gulf between female candidates and female

office-holders? Some critics of the quota law argue that while it incentivizes women to enter politics and obligates political parties to invest a small portion of government-allocated funds in recruiting and designing programming for female candidates, those candidates themselves then often receive little financial support . “Parties receive donations and choose in which candidates they will invest this money. And most of [these candidates]

aren’t women,” said Celi Pinto, a political-science professor at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (in Brazil, donations can go to parties or individual candidates). “The quotas have never been a threat to men’s power in politics .” In fact, while women on average hold 25 percent of parliamentary seats in Latin America and the Caribbean (the highest regional average in the world), that figure hovers around 10 percent in Brazil. On the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)’s ranking of 189 countries by female representation in parliament, Brazil ranks 131st, with women holding 9 percent of seats in the country’s lower house as of 2010 (women held 16 percent of seats in the upper house).

AT: VOTER ACHIEVEMENT TESTS

VOTER TESTS CAUSE BIASED POLITICAL EDUCATION AND LINKS TO POLITICS

Somin 15 [Ilya Somin, law professor at GMU and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, 4-3-2015, "Should we pay citizens to vote?," https://web.archive.org/web/20200829140000/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/04/03/should-we-pay-citizens-to-vote/ ] /Triumph Debate

Sadly, however, there is a fly in the ointment, also outlined in my 2013 post: As Bryan recognizes, the major objection to his idea is the likelihood of partisan bias. Incumbent office-holders will do all they can to bias the test in favor of their party ’s positions . I think Bryan dismisses this danger too easily by noting that traditional civics education is often

biased as well. There is plenty of political bias in traditional public education. But precisely because under Bryan’s people would have much stronger incentives to actually learn and remember the info rmation in question , the impact of the bias will be enormously magnified . This danger is the reason why I stopped short of actually endorsing the idea of paying voters to learn political information in my book. In sum, I would be open to supporting Stephen Carter’s idea of paying people to vote if it can be effectively combined with some version of Caplan’s or my scheme for paying voters to increase their knowledge of the issues they

are voting on. So far, I don’t see any effective way to forestall the danger of bias that bedevils Caplan’s VAT proposal. But I am not ready to dismiss the idea entirely. Perhaps someone else will come up with a solution to the problem of bias that has eluded me. Of

course, any such solution would have to be feasible under real-world conditions, which include enactment by real-world politicians and administration by real-world government bureaucrats (or perhaps private contractors hired by those same politicians and bureaucrats). I don’t doubt that an ideologically diverse team of economists or political scientists could come up

with an excellent and well-balanced test. But I am skeptical that any such objective test would actually be adopted by the government. And even if it is, I worry that it would become corrupted by partisan bias over time .

AT: EU

EU DEMOCRACY FAILS NOW – BREXIT, AND CENTRAL GOVERNMENT UNACCOUNTABILITY AND REGULATION – THE AFF CAN’T SOLVE SINCE THE EU IS STRUCTURALLY UNDEMOCRATIC

Dougherty 20 [Michael Brendan Dougherty, senior writer at National Review and Visiting Fellow for the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies division at AEI, 1-31-2020, "Why Brexit Matters," National Review, https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/why-brexit-matters/ ] /Triumph Debate

Because European Union business runs on Brussels time, the United Kingdom will be leaving the EU at precisely 11 p.m. GMT Friday.

(If you’re in New York and want to tip your glass to our newly sovereign friends, that’s 6 p.m. EST.) In my own, perhaps peculiar view, Brexit is the most important moment for democracy since 1989. Why? If the European Union were merely the European Market, Brexit would be foolish: The United Kingdom has enjoyed a kind of privileged access to the

Common Market because it retains its own powerful currency rather than the Euro, which in reality is managed on behalf of Germany and against the interests of Southern Europe. But the European Union is not just a market but a political project, really a kind of institutionalized utopian project. European Council president Donald Tusk said, “I fear Br exit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also Western political civilization in its entirety .” It’s easy to point and laugh at such an extravagant statement, but Tusk was verbalizing the incredible challenge Brexit presents to a certain kind of European mind, a mind conditioned to the idea that

democracy inheres not in popular sovereignty — democratic peoples governing themselves — but in the elite administration of h uman r ights , insulated from democratic passions and prejudices. It is this worldview that has

shaped the construction of the European Union. The EU is governed by an unelected Commission and an unelected Court, both joined to an elected Parliament with no real legislative power . Can you impeach a European commissioner? Can you vote for one? Or vote to remove one? No, non, nein! The European project that

the Commission promotes and protects is guided by a spirit of ever- closer union , not the laws and treaties it makes.

The European Union does not respect votes that go against that spirit , such as Ireland’s vote against the Lisbon treaty; instead, it forces reruns. It does not respect its own commitments, either: Angela Merkel’s welcome to 1 million refugees and migrants in 2015 totally blew apart the supposedly solemn Dublin Accords. It

plays favorites: The pro-EU Emmanuel Macron is allowed to temporarily blow through the budgeting and debt requirements imposed on member states , but those same requirements are enforced with fervor against populists such as Italy’s Matteo Salvini. And it has no qualms about interfering in the politics of its member states: During the Euro crisis, recalcitrant national governments in Italy and Greece were replaced by a combination of pressure from above in the form of the Commission and the European Central Bank, and from sideways in the form of captured native interests. In short, untethered from real democratic input, the EU at once suffocates European life with regulation and unmoors it with lawless caprice. The response of the European Union to Brexit isn’t rebuke and repentance, a newfound willingness to accede to the wishes of the democratic peoples within it. No, it’s doubling down. MEP Guy Verhofstadt has said that Brexit has underscored the need to “make it into a real Union, a Union without opt-in, without opt-outs, without rebates, without exceptions.

Only then we can defend our interests and defend our values.” Lest you dismiss his words as empty, it is Verhofstadt who has been

chosen to lead the next Conference on the Future of Europe, which is already preparing to recommend removing the last true badges of sovereign and democratic control from national parliaments: their

freedom to tax and appropriate money as they see fit. Doing this is likely necessary to save the Euro. But the price is the loss of self-government on the continent where self-government was born into this world. Having bought off almost every party save for nationalists and populists, the European Union is, ironically, guaranteeing the very thing it was created to stop: the ascendance of nationali