GGSA By-Laws (State Quals Debate)

STATE QUALIFYING DEBATE TOURNAMENT

1. Entries should be limited to qualified “A” debaters. In addition a school may enter as many teams as there are spots for the State Tournament.

2. Qualified “A” debater means a debater who has finished a GGSA “A” tournament undefeated or with only one loss during the current school year or competed in an invitational in “A” division. 

3. Debaters enter State Quals intending to participate in the State Tournament.

4. The entry deadline shall be determined by the tournament director.

5. The place for the State Qualifying Tournament in debate should be one which offers an ample supply of contest rooms, a good supply of qualified judges, and friendly cooperation. Judges who are former forensics participants shall not judge contestants against whom they could have competed with in high school

6. Teams/individuals shall be identified only by side and name on all posting sheets and judges’ ballots for all rounds of this tournament. Students are not to reveal their school name to the judges.

7. The debate tournament director in consultation with the GGSA president shall appoint a tournament committee of three(3) to conduct the tournament, adjudicate disputes, interpret the application of rules, and exercise all the powers vested by the statutes in the GGSA president.

8. Appeals shall be made to the committee of three mentioned above.

9. Three judges shall be used in all rounds.

10. The tournament director shall exercise general supervision and not saddle him/herself with one of the detailed jobs. She/He should be available for consultation at any time and give assistance wherever needed. 

11. Criteria for paneling judges:

1. avoid assigning a judge to judge its own school.

2. avoid assigning a judge to judge the same debater a second time, especially on the Affirmative.

3. honor the wish of the judge i.e. prefer to judge policy or LD.

4. move the judge into a different pool if:

1. a judge volunteers

2. it is necessary to fulfill a school’s judging commitment

3. no other judges are available

4. the judge will be required to see the same debater on the same side.

12. Procedures to determine state tournament qualifiers and alternates for Policy Debate, Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Parliamentary Debate and Public Forum Debate.

1.  Preliminary Rounds

1. There shall be 4 preliminary rounds of switch-sides debates, with two affirmative and negative rounds per team.  Entry limits may be instituted by the tournament committee, but in no event will the entry limit for an event be set below the number of remaining state tournament slots available.  Additional entries may be allowed only if additional entries are made available on an equal basis to all schools.  For example, if one extra entry is allowed in Parliamentary Debate, then one extra entry must be offered to all schools with Parliamentary Debate entries. 

2. Preliminary rounds 1 and 2 shall be paired randomly.  Debate event directors have the discretion to power match Round 2 if that will not delay the start of Round 2 or in order to improve the overall timeliness of the tournament. Preliminary round 3 shall be power-matched using the results of rounds 1 and 2.  Preliminary round 4 shall be power-matched using the results of rounds 1, 2 and 3.   (by-law revision 1/26/19)

3. Byes in preliminary rounds, if necessary, shall be selected as follows.  For prepaired rounds, byes shall be selected at random, but the same school cannot receive the bye in both rounds.  For rounds 3 and 4, entries eligible for a bye shall be those entries from schools that have not yet received a bye and who have no wins.  If possible, the bye should go to a winless team that has lost to at least one undefeated team.  

4. Three judges shall be used in every round.  

5. The Tournament Committee shall have discretion to determine whether preliminary rounds shall be single- or double-flighted.

6. Preliminary rounds 3 and 4 (and round 2 if applicable) shall be high-low power-matched within win-loss brackets by the tournament software using the following criteria, in order: 

1. Avoid entries from the same school hitting each other;

2. Avoid entries hitting each other twice;

3. Total wins (including byes);

4. Total number of ballots (with byes awarded two ballots).  

5. When pull ups are required- they should be pulled up randomly from the bracket immediately below the bracket requiring a pull-up (for example a pull-up for the 3-0 bracket should come from the 2-1 bracket).

2. Elimination Rounds

1. All teams with no losses or one loss will clear to elimination rounds (or will qualify to States if no elimination rounds are necessary). The number of elimination rounds shall be the minimum number necessary to ensure that all undefeated and one-loss teams clear, and may be zero..   

2. If the number of clearing entries is less than or equal to the number of qualifiers, the clearing entries will be the qualifiers, and no elimination rounds will be held.

3. If the number of clearing entries is more than the number of qualifiers, but less than twice the number of qualifiers, then there will be one partial elimination round. The top seeded entries will receive a bye.  If this would result in one entry receiving two byes at the tournament, then the entry shall be excluded from the assignment of byes for the elimination round.

The number of byes plus the number of debates will equal the number of qualifiers, with the winners of the elimination round and the byes qualifying to States. 

4. If the number of clearing entries is equal to twice the number of qualifiers, then there will be a single elimination round, with all clearing entries debating.

5. If the number of clearing entries is greater than twice the number of qualifiers, then there will be two elimination rounds. The top seeds will receive byes in the first elimination round. The number of byes in the first elimination round plus the number of debates in the first elimination round shall equal twice the number of qualifiers.

6. For purposes of seeding elimination rounds, the tiebreakers will be as follows, in order.

1. Total number of wins (including byes); 

2. Total number of ballots (with byes awarded two ballots)

3. Opposition wins;

4. Head-to-head;

5. Coin toss.

1. In the elimination bracket, the top-seeded team (other than teams receiving byes) shall hit the lowest-seeded team, the second highest-seeded team shall hit the second lowest-seeded team, etc

7. In the event that the elimination bracket as described above would result in a school hitting itself, the bracket shall be adjusted, but only to the extent that a difference of one position occurs.  To illustrate, in an eight team bracket, where the #1 seed should hit the #8 seed, it would be acceptable to have the #1 seed hit the #7 seed, but it would not be acceptable to have the #1 seed hit the #6 seed.  In any event, bracket adjustments will only be made if it reduces the instances of schools hitting themselves. 

8. In the event that it is impossible to avoid having a school hit itself, the debate shall be assigned and the coach shall notify the tab room as to which team will advance.  Bracket adjustments may have to be repeated in subsequent elimination rounds, and shall be done so as necessary, using the same process.  Bracket adjustments can also affect the partial elimination round in order to prevent a school from hitting itself, even if it means an entry that would not have had to debate then does have to debate because it moved from 17th to 18th seed, for example, in order to prevent a school from having to hit itself. 

9.  Winners in the final elimination round shall be the state qualifiers.

10. Alternates will be those entries who lose in the final elimination round.  They will be ranked using the following priorities: total number of wins (including byes); total number of ballots (with byes awarded two ballots); opposition wins, head-to-head competition; and coin flip (or random drawing if more than two teams are tied).

13. The State Qualifying Tournament shall be scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.  

1. No round shall start after 8:00 pm. All competition, including Alternate Qualifying competition, must be concluded on the Sunday following the State Qualifying Debate Tournament.

2. Validity of evidence:  Protests

1. All evidence used in a debate must contain the name of the authority, the name of the source, the date and page number, even if all of the above are not read in the debate. The burden of proof rests with the team/individual challenging the validity of any evidence.

2. Judges shall not be allowed to request any evidence form debaters except when the evidence is challenged as invalid by the opposing team/individual during the round.

3. Personal letters or telegrams shall not be admissible as evidence in any debate.

4. A protest must be lodged within 15 minutes of the close of a round.

5. The coach of one of the debaters involved must lodge the protest.

6. If it is a question of prompting, all three judges must agree that it occurred.

7. A grievance committee must make the decisions.

3. Awards: Equal awards, trophies, shall go the qualifying entries. Alternates shall receive appropriate awards

14.  Fees:  $50.00 per debate team. $26.50 per LD individual

15. Sweepstakes:  Debate sweepstakes will be determined by the competitor’s performance in “A” division.  

1. Schools will be divided into large and small school divisions based on their average “A” division entry size at preliminary tournaments.

2. LD and Team sweepstakes will be tabulated separately.

3. The large school division will include the top 50% of schools based on average entry size. All others will be considered small.

4. Points are to be awarded as follows:

1. Undefeated – 2 points

2. Once defeated – 1 point

5. The school with the highest point total in its division at the end of the year places first. In case of a tie, the school with the greatest number of undefeated shall be first. Awards will be given to the top five schools in each division. Student awards will be presented at the State Qualifying Tournament. Sweepstakes awards will be given at the May coaches’ meeting.