CEDA Invite 2026

CEDA Nationals 2026 Invite

It is our pleasure to invite you to attend the 2026 CEDA National Debate Tournament April 2-6, hosted by Binghamton University. We will be hosting on campus in Binghamton, allowing both in-person and online entries.

We invite all teams to attend this tournament and will not set an entry limit. We will be offering novice breakout elimination debates.

This invitation will provide all necessary information to enter and prepare to attend the tournament. We will provide updated tournament information as the tournament approaches. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Phil Samuels at phil.samuels@gmail.com.

We look forward to seeing everyone soon!

Phil Samuels Rob Glass Deven Cooper

CEDA President First Vice President, CEDA Second Vice President, CEDA

CEDA Statement of Principles and Tournament Governance

The Cross Examination Debate Association is committed to promoting ethical communication behavior as important part of an activity that maintains a deep respect for freedom of expression. Its members recognize that the adversarial and competitive nature of academic debate places participant students, educators, judges, and tournament administrators in the position of having to weigh the merits of competing strategies that may have ethical implications. Related to this principle is the belief that all members of this community will have access to all CEDA debate activities regardless of race, gender, sex, creed, age, national origin, sexual orientation, impairment, or disability.

In recognition that the Cross Examination Debate Association is an association of professional educators committed to promoting a respectful form of argumentation; the Association recognizes that behaviors which belittle, degrade, demean, or otherwise dehumanize others are not in the best interest of the activity because they interfere with the goals of education and personal growth. All CEDA participants should recognize the rights of others and communicate with respect for opponents, colleagues, critics, tournament hosts and audience members.

CEDA participants should also adhere to the CEDA Constitution, CEDA By-laws, and local, state, and federal laws. Behaviors by any tournament participants occurring at Association supported, sanctioned, or sponsored events that violate this standard of a healthy educational environment should be recognized as “Unprofessional Conduct;” and inconsistent with the mission of the Association. These actions are subject to sanction(s) by the Association. The community should continue to emphasize best practices for ethical and respectful forms of argumentation.

In keeping with these principles, the CEDA National Tournament will abide by the guidelines and procedures of CEDA's Statement on Discrimination and Sexual Harassment and the CEDA Statement of Ethical Principles. Please inform your students that a Sexual Harassment Officer will be available to hear any complaints at the tournament.

CEDA Affirmative Placement Policies

The Cross Examination Debate Association 2026 National Tournament will have systems to affirmatively place women and racial minorities in accordance with the 2017 amendment.

Entering the Tournament

I. Fees

Every school that enters CEDA Nationals must be a member of CEDA (i.e., current with their 2025-2026 CEDA dues). You may pay your dues along with your entry fees. We ask for your cooperation in correctly entering and quickly updating your entries if changes become necessary.

Programs designed as ‘emerging’ should confirm their discounts in their entry fees when registering.

Payment can be made directly to CEDA using our paypal store linked at www.cedadebate.org. You may also pay by cash or cashier’s check in person at the tournament registration. We will no longer be accepting personal checks as payment.

Registration fees are as follows:

For in person participants (debaters, coaches, observers) -- $100 per person.

For online teams -- $200 per team

Online coaches and judges are free.

No registration will be accepted after March 25th.

Per-person fees will be assessed on March 25th. Due to catering and trophy commitments, schools will be required to pay for all individuals entered at this time.

If your fees are not paid by the end of round 2, all teams from that school will forfeit rounds until the fees are paid. Changes, including drops or name changes, will be accepted by phone or email. If you make a late name change, you are required to update your verification forms to include these students. To make a change in your entry after March 25th, please contact Kathryn Rubino and kathrynrubino@gmail.com.

Your registration is not complete until you complete the check-in registration on April 1st. You will not be entered into the tournament if you do not complete check-in registration during the designated time for registration. If travel delays beyond your control occur, please see the tab room staff as soon as you reach the tournament to verify your entry and judging preferences.

II. Entering your school, team, and judges

You may enter CEDA Nationals online at http://www.tabroom.com/. The tournament will make reasonable accommodations for all qualified tournament participants. Please include the name of individuals and the nature of the accommodation requested in your entry. Accessibility requests should be communicated to Joe Schatz at debate@binghamton.edu .

Hybrids: The practice of entering hybrid school teams is allowed. Teams may be composed of two students from different member schools, so long as the judging requirements are met. All hybrids should be confirmed with the tournament director to ensure proper round pairing.

Judging Requirements: Each school is responsible for providing four rounds of preliminary round judging for every team entered. To assure the best judging pool possible, every qualified judge should be in the pool for at least two preliminary debates. All judges are obligated through the Double-Octafinal round. Affirmative placement will be more effective on the final day if diverse judges make themselves available beyond their commitment.

Judging Practices: All judges must render a decision in each assigned round. One team must win, and the opposing team must lose. Speaker points on a range of 1-30 must be assigned to each speaker, including tenths of a decimal place and no ties between debaters. We ask that all judges seek to provide some level of differentiation between the points assigned to each speaker in a debate. Judges failing to show up for an assigned debate will be assessed a $50.00 fee. This fee will need to be paid to the Treasurer prior to the Awards Assembly. Any judge failing to show up in rounds occurring after the Awards Ceremony, will also result in a $50.00 fee, billed to the school for whom the judge represents.

Decision and Discussion Time: To facilitate the tournament, we are requiring that all judges decide each preliminary debate by the announced decision time for each debate. The decision time for preliminary debates is two hours and fifteen minutes (2:15) after the posted start time of the debate. The decision time for elimination debates is two hours and thirty (2:30) minutes after the posted start time of the debate. Fifteen minutes minimum will be allocated to post round discussion of the decision, but we must ask that the post-round cease 20 minutes after the decision deadline so debaters can move on to their next debate with adequate and fair time.

Judging Philosophies: All judges must provide a judging philosophy or they cannot judge. Philosophy statements from all judges for a school must accompany the school's entry and be entered electronically on tabroom.com.

III. Eligibility

Participating schools must be members of CEDA at the time of registration. Each debate team entered in this tournament must consist of two students, each of whom presents one constructive speech and one rebuttal speech. Unless otherwise provided dispensation by the CEDA Executive Council, the term "students" is defined as "officially enrolled undergraduate students in good standing at the college or university they represent in competition" and tournament contestants must not have competed for more than the maximum of five different, not necessarily consecutive, academic years. Participation in other forms of post-secondary debate will factor into eligibility calculation when conditions in subsequent subsections are met. Three-person teams and one-person teams are not eligible to enter or compete in the tournament. Students may participate in no more than four CEDA National Tournaments.

In the spring of 2009, we clarified our rules with regard to enrollment documents. Our new constitutional requirement specifies that, “Each program entering the National CEDA Tournament is required to submit official documentation from their college or university verifying that each competitor is currently enrolled and in good standing.” There is no required form for these documents. As long as your materials satisfy these criteria they will be accepted.

Please submit eligibility documents electronically to phil.samuels@gmail.com by March 25, 2026.

IV. Tournament Hotel & Travel

Tournament Hotel

Double Tree Binghamton
225 Water St,
Binghamton, NY 13901

The rate is $135/night. We can adjust rooms up until March 1, so the earlier you get your rooms the better!

Here’s the booking link: https://www.hilton.com/en/book/reservation/deeplink/?ctyhocn=BGMWSDT&groupCode=CDTCED&arrivaldate=2026-03-31&departuredate=2026-04-06&cid=OM,WW,HILTONLINK,EN,DirectLink&fromId=HILTONLINKDIRECT

Parking

To be updated later.

Campus Map

https://www.binghamton.edu/maps/

Tournament Procedures

Divisions:

All preliminary competition will be held in one division, featuring in-person and online participants. This division is open to all eligible debaters. All debates will operate on a 9-3-6 model with 10 minutes per team for preparation. There will be a separate elimination round bracket for teams comprised of two Novices and declaring during the registration, their intent to participate in the Novice elims should they qualify.

Judging Assignment Procedure and Preference Forms:

Assignment of judges will be done according to a mutual preference system from an available pool of critics. We plan to use Larson’s ordinal Ranking system, with adjustments for affirmative placement consistent with recent CEDA Bylaws Amendments.

Judges failing to show up for an assigned debate will be assessed a $50.00 fee. This fee will need to be paid to the Treasurer prior to the Awards Assembly. Any judge failing to show up in rounds occurring after the Awards Ceremony, will also result in a $50.00 fee, billed to the school for whom the judge represents.

Preference forms turned in before 3:30PM on April 1 will be honored for the whole tournament. Forms turned in after the 3:30 PM deadline but before the beginning of Round 1 will be honored in all rounds after Round 5. No forms will be accepted after the start of Round 1. Beginning with the Octafinal round until the semifinal round, we will also supply strike cards consisting of five critics selected by the mutual preference system. Each team will be allowed to strike one critic to determine the panel of judges.

To assure that judges are assigned fairly, it will be the obligation of coaches, judges, and contestants to indicate any conflicts on the entry form. We urge judges to avoid the appearance of impropriety by excusing themselves from hearing teams with whom they have recent close association or imminent future associations. Associations include judging and traveling with a team, coaching a member of a team, being a recent graduate of that school, being romantically involved with member(s) of the team, etc. Judges should also excuse themselves from judging teams from schools at which they are planning to coach next year.

Schedule

Tobacco, Alcohol and Illegal Substances Policy:

There will be no smoking (including vaping and e-cigarettes), alcohol consumption or use of illegal substances during any competition at the 2026 CEDA National Tournament. Individuals violating this rule should expect to be asked to leave the tournament. We ask that all Directors of Forensics, coaches, and judges communicate this expectation to student competitors.

Matching:

Rounds 1-2 will be preset randomly. The remaining debate rounds will be paired using the following criteria. 1) We will create a rank order of teams based on traditional sorting criteria. This creates a “seed” for each team as of that point in the tournament. 2) We will calculate the average seed of each of a team’s prior opponents. 3) When necessary due to side skews, teams will be advanced to the next higher bracket based in order of the weakest average strength of opposition. 3) Once brackets are equalized, a team’s own seed and the average seed of their prior opponents will be added together to create a hybrid statistic WLQ. 4) Teams will be sorted high to low within brackets based on WLQ.

Elimination Rounds:

Teams will break to elimination rounds and be placed in bracket order based on the seeding process described above. The top half of competitors (up to 64 teams) will qualify for the elimination rounds. Brackets will not be broken in elimination rounds should two teams from the same school be scheduled to meet each other. Mixed-team schools will be granted "same team" status for matching purposes. In the event that two teams from the same school are scheduled to debate in the elimination rounds, the school involved must indicate to the tournament director which team will advance at the beginning of that round. Judges are expected to decide in a timely manner. If judges do not decide in a reasonable time frame, the tab room will impose a time limit.

Novice Break Out Elimination Rounds:

We will offer a breakout Elimination Round bracket for teams comprised of 2 Novice debaters as per the CEDA definition. The bracket will qualify up to the top eight eligible Novice entries.

When you register please indicate any teams comprised of two Novice debaters who would like to be considered for the Novice Breakout Bracket. Judge preferences will be in effect for the Novice Breakout Bracket, with explicit instructions to the tab room staff, to first place judges in the National Championship Bracket rounds, then to place judges in the Novice Breakout Bracket rounds. A novice team may qualify and compete for the elimination rounds in the championship division. The only conflict would occur if and when a novice team reached the elimination rounds in the open division. Any novice team qualifying for the elimination rounds must continue to compete in the open division championship.

All judges are obligated through the Double Octafinals of the National Tournament.

Awards:

In addition to the annual CEDA awards, awards will be presented to all elimination round participants and to the top twenty speakers in the preliminary rounds. Sweepstakes awards will be presented as that information becomes available. Regional awards not already presented will be mailed to recipients at the conclusion of the National Tournament.

Audio/Video Recordings:

CEDA will not record any debate without the full prior consent of all participants. Recordings are allowed for educational purposes; however, tournament participantsmusthave prior affirmative consent of all those participating in the debate they wish to observe and/or record.

Observers:

While debates are open to registered participants, observers may not electronically record a debate without affirmative consent of the participants in that debate.

Student privacy and safety:

CEDA supports the principles of the Association of Black Argumentation Professionals (ABAP) Digital Bill of Rights (DBOR) to represent tournament participants’ privacy concerns. In accordance with the document, we encourage scouting practices which balance the need for scouting with the privacy concerns expressed by many in our community. If any student or participant has a privacy or safety concern, please contact phil.samuels@gmail.com for immediate assistance.