Voting issue

A voting issue is an argument that the Affirmative or Negative team uses to sum up the round and explain why they should win. They are simply issues that each team particularly wants the judge to take into consideration when deciding who to vote for. For example, if the Negative team runs three disadvantages, they may list "disadvantages of the plan" as a voting issue. Other voting issues may be more complicated, like "unclear plan".

Voting issues are almost always brought up in each team's last speech of the round (the 2NR for the Negative and the 2AR for the Affirmative). They are often given as the last part of the speech, and may be brought up even if the opposing team did not list any voting issues (for example, the 2AR may list voting issues even if the 2NR didn't.)

A variation on voting issues are reverse voting issues, where one of the reasons to vote for a team is because of an argument raised by the other team.