What happens at a Hudson Valley Debate Union debate?

By PATRICK McGRATH
Founder of the Hudson Valley Debate Union

Maybe you were on the debate team in high school. Maybe you're used to the Presidential "debates" in past years-divisible-by-four, where you just sat back and listened.

You may be thinking that that's what's going to happen at the Hudson Valley Debate Union. If so, I have a one-word answer for you -- a word in a foreign language: Fuggedabbowdit. (Brooklynese, of course.)

No, dear visitors, HVDU debates are participatory debates, and you are the participants. How?

The debate format at the HVDU is a modified version of the format used at the famous Debate Unions of Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England, and also used at many other debate societies in the English-speaking world, such as the Literary and Historical Society of University College, Dublin, Ireland.

On the Points

At the heart of the format is Point of Information. When a Principal Speaker is speaking, during his "unprotected time" -- more on this in a moment -- any Voting Guest in the hall can stand up, raise his or her hand in prescribed manner (arm high, palm flat) and shout out, "Point of information!"

Now you'd better have a short and snappy question ready when you make a Point of Information. And keep in mind that a Principal Speaker has the right to refuse any and all Points of Information. Nevertheless, at that Point, there's nothing between You the Voting Guest, and the Principal Speaker -- who may be a very large Principal indeed.

"You the Voting Guest" means You the Onion Farmer from Pine Island and You the Hip-Hopper from Mount Vernon and You the Scarsdale Socialite and You the Sixties Refugee in Woodstock and Bethel and You the Condo-Dweller in Piermont and You the Bodega Owner from Haverstraw Village and You the Housewife from Poughkeepsie. You get the point.

Points of Information are made right from where you're sitting. You just stand up and rip it. Phil Donahue is not going to be coming down the aisle with a wireless microphone waiting for you. Your Point of Information is powered by your lips, teeth, tongue, and lungs.

Will you be afraid? Sure. But it's the most delicious fear in the world.

Your vote counts

And if you don't speak through a Point of Information, you'll speak through the ballot box. Quite literally. You're a Voting Guest, after all. And we do this low-tech -- each Voting Guest has a Yes and a No ballot, and when the question is called, you'll drop your Yes or No card in the ballot boxes that we'll pass through the aisles. We'll count them, and you'll find out who's won the day.

In-your-face democracy, you might call it.

Here's the rundown

Let's go through the drill step by step:

  1. At the appointed time, the Sergeant-at-Arms will lead in the Moderator's Procession. All rise.
  2. The Moderator will welcome you all, and a Chaplain will give a Moment of Reflection.
  3. The Moderator will then introduce the motion for the day, and the six Principal Speakers. He will then remind everyone of the "simple rules" of the debate.
  4. The "simple rules" are this: Each Principal Speaker has exactly ten (10) minutes. The first and the last of those ten minutes are "protected" -- no Points of Information are allowed. But during the middle eight "unprotected" minutes, Points of Information are allowed -- in the correct format, of course.
  5. A bell will ring at -- a) one minute, to open "unprotected" time; b) at nine minutes, to close "unprotected time; and c) at ten minutes, when "the time of the honorable gentleman has expired," as they say at the Capitol.
  6. The First Proponent of the Motion goes first, then the First Opponent of Motion follows, then back, forth, back, forth, until the six Principal Speakers are finished. All of them are subject to Points of Information at the appropriate times.
  7. Then a lucky Voting Guest -- picked out beforehand -- gets called on by the Moderator to say just one thing. "Mr. Chairman, I call the question." That's all. Nothing elaborate. The Voting Guest can read it off a card if need be.
  8. The Moderator then declares that the Question has been called, and asks the Ushers to pass the ballot boxes among You the Voting Guests. Remember -- only one vote per Guest; if you put both cards in, you've just wasted your vote.
  9. The Ushers count the ballots, the Chief Usher announces the tally, and the Moderator announces whether the motion has been carried or defeated.
  10. That's it. You've just had a life-changing experience at the Hudson Valley Debate Union.

Each Debate will have an Order Paper, which lists the names and affiliations of the Principal Speakers, the motion to be debated, and the rundown as I've just described it. You can't tell the players without a scorecard, and you can't tell the Principal Speakers without an Order Paper.

So. Are you ready to rumble?