Star Voting

STAR - Score Then Automatic Runoff

It's easy! Score the best candidate a 10, the worst 0, and the other candidates in comparison. Ties are allowed, 5 is the middle score.

The two candidates with the highest total scores meet in an automatic runoff that elects a majority winner.

Counting the Votes

In the automatic runoff, the candidate preferred on most ballots wins. If Ivy Independent and Roger Ramjet are the finalists, and you gave Ivy a score of 5 and Roger a 3, your vote would go to Ivy. If you gave both candidates a 4, your vote will not help or harm either candidate because you have no preference between them.

The score range could be 0 - to any even number. A score range from “0” to an even number top score will have a middle score. A 0 to 6 range would have 3 as a middle score. Ideally, the score range should exceed the number of candidates, so voters do not need to have ties on their ballots.

Strategy

STAR encourages voters to vote sincerely. In the runoff, is does not matter if you gave two opposing candidates 10 & 0 or 6 & 5; your preferred candidate gets 1 vote.

If you give one candidate a top score and everyone else 0, you have no voice if your favorite does not make the automatic runoff.

You could also give all the candidates you like a top score and those you dislike a “0”, but this could help your second or third choice get into the automatic runoff at the expense of your favorite. This would also put your worst candidate on par with the candidates you dislike less.

State Constitutions

In STAR’s automatic runoff, the candidate preferred by a majority of the voters wins. This satisfies states that require the “highest,” “greatest,” or “largest” number of votes, a “plurality” of the votes, or a “majority” of the votes. It is still possible that a state supreme court may find that STAR, or any other voting method, does not comply with the state constitution for other reasons.

We must give careful consideration to the language of any legislative proposal that changes a voting method. For example, STAR and BTR-Score voting instructions might say, “Give your favorite the maximum number of votes” or “Give your favorite the top score”. The choice would be determined by how the state constitution defines “votes”.

Additional Considerations

STAR is a hybrid voting method designed to be neutral. STAR has no preference towards the middle or the extremes.

STAR topped the charts in VSE (Voter Satisfaction Efficiency). So much so that Jonathan Quinn, the creator of VSE, recommended STAR Voting.^[1] Both STAR and Score were well above “choose 1” Plurality voting and Ranked Choice Voting. The VSE study did not include BTR-Score.

It is more work to count STAR ballots than plurality ballots. Opponents will scream bloody murder, but it is not a big deal. Many nations have far more complex voting systems.

STAR will elect a winner in a fair manner. STAR’s simplicity makes it a transparent voting method. Ranked Choice Voting is more complex and less reliable because of the capricious way some “second choice” votes are counted and some are not.

STAR voting will enable voters to express their true opinions about each candidate without fear of spoilers. This makes STAR voting far better than traditional Plurality voting.

Summery

STAR voting is superior to Plurality voting and Ranked Choice Voting. We consider it to be one of the three best voting methods for single-winner elections, along with BTR-Score and Roud Robin voting.