Louisiana District Qualifier

for the 2019 National Tournament

Tabulation Procedures

We are using the new pilot rules in all events at Districts. For those who are used to the "double down" system, this is a radical change.

Debate:
All entries are guaranteed 4 rounds. Rounds 1 and 2 will be randomly paired (with school constraints and side constraints in Round 2 of LD and Policy). Rounds 3 and 4 will be paired hi/low within brackets. This means that SPEAKER POINTS will be used and will affect pairings, seedings, and alternates to Nationals.

At the end of the 4th round, all entries with a record of 3-1 or better will advanced to a traditional seeded elimination round bracket. When we have 2 finalists, the event is over and we will know our national qualifiers.

To break ties to determine alternates, we will use (1) ballot count in ELIMS, then (2) prelim seed.

A note about Public Forum: there is a COIN FLIP in ALL rounds to determine side and speaker order per NSDA rules. Please see the unified manual for details.

Speech:
All entries are guaranteed 4 rounds. After the 4th round, we will break straight to finals. The software will DROP the worst round for every competitor and add the best 3 ranks. The adjusted total will be used to determine who breaks. The goal is 25% of the field to break with a minimum of 4 in finals. After finals, the adjusted total from the prelims will be added to TWO TIMES the ranks in finals to determine the total. Thus, a total of 9 ballots will be used (3 from prelims and 3 from finals counted twice). Low total wins.

If there are ties, they will be broken by reciprocal fractions (using the 3 best prelim rounds and TWO TIMES the ranks in finals). If still tied, the software will use final round ranks, judge's preference, and reciprocals [as we do at traditional tournaments that use "clean slate" in finals].

Please check the manual for the pilot rules on the NSDA website for details.