Live · Built for debate judges
Tallyman is a live scoring room for debate panels. Every judge scores from wherever they are, the totals add themselves up, and the verdict is ready the moment the last ballot lands.
The end-of-round scramble
It was a close final. Three judges, three paper ballots, nine categories on each, a rebuttal score, a time penalty to subtract. Someone is adding up columns by hand under the lights while the room waits. A 9 gets read as a 4. Two totals get transposed. The margin is two points — and now nobody is quite sure the announced result is right.
Then there's the new reality: half your panel isn't even in the building. They're judging the same round from three different parishes over Zoom, and there's no shared sheet, no single source of truth — just screenshots and a group chat. The tallying becomes its own argument.
How Tallyman works
A school, organizer, or judge opens a session, sets the motion and the two teams, names a chief judge, and invites the panel by email. Setup takes seconds, not spreadsheets.
Invited judges sign in and open their ballot on any phone, tablet, or laptop. Totals and time penalties add up as they type, nothing goes over the maximum, and only invited accounts can take part — no codes to leak.
Every ballot harmonizes into one panel result in real time. Tallyman flags a close call or a tie, the chief resolves it and locks the result, and the winner and margin are ready to announce.
What you get
Speaker totals, rebuttal, and team scores add themselves up live. No columns, no calculators.
All judges' ballots converge to one panel result in real time — sum and per-judge average.
Tallyman highlights tight margins and disagreement before they become a dispute in the room.
Over-time deductions are a tap, applied to the right speaker, and reflected in the total.
Every box is bounded by its own maximum, so an out-of-range mark can't slip through.
The winner and margin are on screen the moment scoring closes. The announcement waits on no one.
It runs in the browser. Judges are invited by email — nothing to download, nothing to set up.
A live leaderboard from the constructive speeches only. Close calls are flagged for the chief to confirm.
Enter each team's speakers up front and every judge's ballot is pre-filled — no drifting names, no mismatches.
One tidy page — motion, scores, winner, and best speaker — ready to print, save as PDF, or share on the spot.
Built around how adjudication actually works: speakers, rebuttal, and the categories judges score.
When totals are level, Tallyman applies the tie-break order — then the chief makes the call, with a reason on the record.
Tallyman mirrors the sheet judges already trust — analysis and interpretation, arguments, accuracy, organisation, reasoning, and a full rebuttal score — so the panel scores the way it always has, only faster and without the arithmetic.
Built for results you can defend
Only judges invited by email can score a round — no shared codes floating around, no uninvited ballots.
Every session has one clearly identified chief, shown to all, who resolves ties and finalizes the result.
Equal totals trigger a set rule — reasoning, then rebuttal, then arguments — with the chief's call on record.
Judges attach comments to each ballot, so rationale and student feedback travel with every score.
The chief locks the result before it's announced — after that, nothing can quietly change.
Every finished match is kept and downloadable, so a season has one tidy, exportable history.
Built for both sides of the table
No paywall · No per-event fee
Tallyman is free because a fairer, faster count should belong to the whole debate community, not sit behind a licence. Start a match, invite your panel, run your competition — there's no account to buy and no catch.
We'd rather have every league using it than a handful paying for it. Reach and trust come first.
Born from a real national debate competition and the very real pain of tallying close finals.
Running a competition or association? Tell us what your panel needs and help shape what comes next.
The name comes from the old Jamaican dockside work song — the tallyman is the one who counts the load through the night and writes down an honest number, so the crew can finally call it and head home at daybreak. That's exactly the job here: count the round, make it official, let everyone go home knowing the result is right.
Free to start. Invite your panel, score from anywhere, and let the count settle itself.
Get in touch
Tell us about your event or association and we'll help get your panel set up on Tallyman.