Recently, the Oregon group that backs STAR Voting announced it is about to start circulating its statewide initiative. STAR voting is somewhat similar to Ranked Choice Voting. But STAR voting lets voters rank each candidate with between zero and five “stars”. See the STAR website for more information.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
PR SECTION IN OR CONST —
N-O-T ENFORCED.
The major problem with this system that I see is the numbering is the reverse of RCV. 0 is the worst 5 is the best; in a five candidate RCV election 5 would be last place. If you mix systems on the same ballot (say the state uses STAR but federal elections end up being some version of RCV after a bill passes congress that requires federal elections use it)… well, that likely will not be a good outcome.
Under a STAR system, which is essentially a range voting system, partisans will almost always give their candidates 5 stars, and any opponents none. In a close election, the outcome would be decided by the nuanced votes of the non-partisans, which may be what they prefer.
The strategic voting here would be to only vote 5s for your own party and 0s for everybody else. Let the middle vote 3s for both the left and the right candidates (or even 5s for center candidates) the middle will be drowned out by the most preferred partisan as the middle will have the smallest voting block (effectively the center squeeze shows up again even though in theory it shouldn’t)… ultimately this descends into bullet voting 5 for your most preferred candidate.
Top Six/Level the Playing Field calls for people to vote for the candidate of six that represents the entire political spectrum that represents the closest to their beliefs and desires for their country.
Isn’t that what voting is supposed to be?
BTW, I gleaned from tv surveillance that there was violence, I believe a shooting, at CBS News broadcasting facility in Washington, DC. on Friday. They broadcast PGA Golf instead.
It should have been on the news there, a scoop actually, after all that is news, but has evidently been suppressed.
Anybody hear anything about this?
1780S CONDORCET = RCV/AV/STAR/ETC/ETC DONE RIGHT.
Is this system currently in use anywhere?
This is dumb. Elections should be very simple: voters gather one night a year and stand in their party’s corner in front of their neighbors and vote for the winning party. Any other voting method is idiotic and repulsive. The same can be said of the vast majority of those currently being allowed to vote. Voting rights should be much more elite and exclusive.