Debate Tournament

, Writer|November 5, 2013

On Saturday October 12th, Blaine High school hosted one of the biggest state debate tournaments in Minnesota. There were over 10 schools that attended from three parts of the state: Northern Lights, Central, and Southern.

For the event, debaters competed against each other based on their category: Lincoln Douglas, Public Forums, Policy, and Congress. Debaters get four minutes to prove their point and two minutes prep time in between the debates. Each participant debated in a total of five rounds, alternating between the negative and affirmative side of the topic.

Rachel Lequire, a 10th grader at Blaine High school was a part of this event. Lequire has been in debate for two years now and is in the LD (Lincoln Douglas) category which debates morals and is usually one on one. The prompt that she had to debate on at Saturday’s event was the idea of compulsory voting which is a very controversial topic.

Lequire’s fifth and final round was against Jerome Jacobsen, a 10th grader from Mahtomedi high school. Jacobsen started off the debate, taking the affirmative side of compulsory voting. His argument was that everyone should be able to vote. He said, “If you don’t vote, you don’t get your voice heard.” Lequire then had to prove that compulsory voting harms equality and democracy. Her argument was that it takes away people’s right to free speech because they are being forced to vote. She also said that compulsory voting is not good for representative government stating that, “People usually check the first box on the ballot not because they care, but because they have to.”

The scores for Blaine students were

Novice