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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (June 6, 2018)
8A | WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2018 | SIUSLAW NEWS STAR from page 1A But having the vote in May can have problems. First, voter turnout is lower in primaries than it is in general elections, so a smaller portion of the popula- tion picks commissioners. And that population is gener- ally partisan. Since it’s a primary, most voters are concerned with voting for their candidates in the general election. Independent voters, or those disinterested in who wins a party’s nomination, may not get their voice heard. In addition, a winner isn’t al- ways declared in May. This is what happened in the East Lane County Commissioner race. Out of six candidates, none received 50 percent. The two highest candidates received 31.25 per- cent and 30.69 percent. Per Lane County rules, those top two vote getters will spill into a runoff in the November election. The problem is, those candi- dates didn’t get there based on any large swell of public sup- port. Thirty percent is a far cry from a majority. Even though one will eventually win a plu- rality of votes in November, the candidates got to that opportu- nity through a minority of parti- san electors in May. Those pushing for STAR vot- ing hope to fix this dilemma in two ways. First, hold the prima- ry of six voters in November, which would widen the pool of potential voters and allow more diverse voices to vote. But it’s still possible that only 30 percent of the population would choose the winner. Will that person be a true representa- tive of the electorate in Eastern Lane County? To fix that issue, STAR voting will be applied to the county races. It won’t be im- plemented in state or city races, but Roberts hopes that if it’s suc- cessful in Lane County, the sys- tem will be adopted throughout the rest of the state. The current method of voting used in Lane County, along with most of the U.S., is what is called plurality voting. That is, a per- son is given a list of candidates and the voter picks one. STAR voting on the oth- er hand, is an alternative, two step-voting process that involves voters scoring candidates. The first step is the initial vote made by the public. Instead of choosing just one candidate, the voter gets to rate each candi- date between 0-5, with 5 being a score in favor, and 0 being a score of no-confidence. It’s akin to rating a business on Yelp or giving a star rating for a movie. “The main advantage is you get the opportunity to vote hon- estly for whichever candidates you like,” Roberts said. “You can give whichever candidate you want a five, and then give your second favorite candidate a four or a three. Or you can give your least favorite candidate a zero, and you give the one that’s just slightly better than that a one. So, every step along the way, you show your preference.” The theory goes, if a person is faced with two candidates that they like, they’re not forced to vote one over the other. Doing that can have detrimental effects on elections. An example of this would be the 2000 election with Ralph Nader and Al Gore, which will be covered later in this article. With STAR, a person can show approval for both candi- dates without compromising their vote. After the initial vote is com- pleted, the top two candidates are put into an automatic runoff. It’s there that votes will be reex- amined, where the candidate who scored higher most often is given the win. “It’s about voting honestly and non-strategically,” Roberts said about the runoff. She stated that without the runoff, it’s possible that people would just rate who they like with fives, and who they don’t like zeros. This is known as “bullet voting.” “They’ll just try to ‘bullet vote’ all candidates they want to ad- vance, and zero for candidates they don’t want to advance,” she said. “So, the automatic runoff is a step that incentivizes hon- est voting. If you know there is going to be a runoff, and if you give one candidate higher than another, and that one person gets your vote, that will inspire people to vote more honestly.” An example of how this works can be seen in the recent White- aker Community Council elec- total points. It also looked at the election as though each seat was independent and compared the top two point-getters in the pool head-to-head. Those two methods of ranking have a cou- ple of differences. So, Candidate A might get more points than vote for cats was 15. In plurality voting, dogs would have come up the winner of the race, 16-15. But was that vote actually indicative of how voters were feeling about the choices of household pets? Yes, some peo- “Using data to choose your representative leads to the more scientifically or mathematically based result. The data shows what you prefer compared to the other candidates, and that information is used to elect the representa- tives to support the people that they want the most.” — Hallie Roberts Campaign Manager for STAR Voting tion in Eugene, where the sys- Candidate B in the score por- tem was given its first (and so tion, but Candidate B might win far, only) live test. the automatic run-off. I think it worked that way for two of the eleven.” Data to Choost What happened in the White- Rtprtstntativts aker race was that for two can- The Whiteaker Community didates, the initial voting score Council used the STAR meth- was higher than their adjusted od for its non-partisan, at-large runoff score. seats. There were 11 positions To explain, we’ll call “Candi- open, with 14 people running date A” dogs, and “Candidate B” for the seats. cats. Did the voting process create Dogs were very polarizing any major shifts in how the vote to the voters in the initial vot- ended up? ing stage. Out of six votes, two “It’s possible for there to have voters really loved them, giving been some changes in the last them a score of five. seat or two, but the first nine or Two voters were rather luke- so all had very solid support,” warm on the animals, giving Brad Foster of the Whiteaker them a three. council said. “If I had to bet, I’d Two more voters absolutely say it ended up pretty much as it hated dogs, giving them a big would have.” zero. Foster does see promise in the On the whole, dogs gained 16 system and believes it’s ready for points. a larger trial in Lane County. Cat support was a little broad- “I also think STAR voting er. Two people gave them a might help bring more diver- four, two people gave them a sity into local politics,” he said. three, one person gave them “Races with multiple candi- a one and only a single voter dates from the same party are gave felines a zero. The total somewhat rare and appear to be actively discouraged by party activists. Under the STAR for- mat, it wouldn’t matter if several people with similar, but slightly different, platforms ran in those races since voters could fine- tune their votes. Right about now, Democrats in California are wishing they had adopted STAR voting instead of Top Two Primaries.” Foster was referencing the current dilemma congressional Democrats are facing in Cali- fornia’s primaries. In that state, the top two primary-vote win- ners wind up on the November election, regardless of their par- ty. But one party could see two Republicans running against five Democrats. Democrats run the risk of diluting their vote between too many candidates. If that happens, it’s possible the two Republicans could gain the most votes and head to No- vember, leaving the Democrats without a nominee. “Overall, it was great,” Foster said about STAR. “This was a big improvement on our prior system of casting votes for up to 11 candidates. The old system felt like we were voting someone off the island by not including them in the 11, but STAR al- lowed us to grade the candidates in a more refined way.” Foster also found some unex- pected results in the data. “The software gave us a bit of interesting data,” he said. “It ranked the candidates by their ple really loved dogs, but just as many people hated them. For man’s best friend, they were pretty polarizing. Cats, on the other hand, ac- tually had broader support of the public. Sure, people weren’t as passionate about cats, but people also didn’t hate them as much. Felines appealed to a broader population of voters. This is where the importance of STAR’s runoff comes in. It takes the top two winners of the initial election, then counts how many times each voter scored one animal over the other. In two instances, dogs scored higher over cats. In one in- stance, dogs scored lower. But in three instances, cats actually scored higher. “We believe that STAR voting will help us elect representatives with a broader base of support,” Roberts said. “You’re going to see candidates winning that have lots of threes and fours, those candidates that everyone can say, ‘Wow, I think they’re good candidates,’ rather than the polar extremes.” Always Something Happening 541.997.1994 | 888.968.4086 715 Q UINCE S TREET | F LORENCE , OR 97439 | WWW . EVENTCENTER . ORG WHAT’S COMING UP: JUNE: 7 - Coastal Fitness Gymnastics Spring Show Th ursday, 6:30 p.m. 8,9, 10 & 15,16,17 Last Resort Players presents “A Nice Family Gathering” Fridays and Saturdays 7:00 p.m Sundays 2:00 p.m 11- Living Trust Seminar Monday, 10:30 a.m, 2:30 p.m and 6:30 p.m 13 - Concealed Weapons Permit Class Wednesday, 1:00 p.m and 6:00 p.m 20 -Governors Marketplace Wednesday, 7:30 a.m – 1:00 p.m 22-Florence Area Community Coalition (FACC) presents Aging In Place Friday, 9:45 a.m Doors Open 30 -FRAA Big Wave Poetry Fest Saturday, 6:30 p.m CONCEALED CARRY PERMIT CLASS MULTI-STATE WA MT ME ND VT MN OR ID WI SD NY MI WY IA PA NE NV IL UT CO CA AZ OH IN OK NM MO VA KY NC TN AR SC MS AL NJ MD WV KS GA TX LA NH MA CT RI DE June 13th March 1pm 2 1 pm Event & 6 pm Florence Center Vancouver Trap St. Club 715 Quince 11100 NE 76th Street Walk-in’s welcome. FL AK HONORED RESIDENT NON PERMIT NOT HONORED Multi-State: Multi-State: $80.00 $80.00 Valid in Included Washington Oregon No Fee Oregon Included No Fee Oregon Only: $45.00 Oregon Only: $45.00 Shaun Curtain 360-921-2071 or email: FirearmTrainingNW@gmail.com | www.FirearmTrainingNW.com Is it possible that candidates who receive a majority of initial votes will lose an election? Yes, as was shown in Whiteaker. Nonpartisan organization FairVote, which champions electoral reforms, stated that because of this possibility, STAR runs the risk of violating funda- mental democratic principles. STAR proponents believe that without the rating and runoff of STAR, the intricacies that go into a person’s reasoning when it comes to voting is lost in the numbers. Even though the initial tally may equal a ma- jority vote, that doesn’t neces- sarily mean the majority whole- heartedly agrees with the choice. “Using data to choose your representative leads to the more scientifically or mathematical- ly based result,” Roberts said. “The data shows what you pre- fer compared to the other can- didates, and that information is used to elect the representatives to support the people that they want the most.” It should be noted that while FairVote had multiple concerns regarding STAR, it remained neutral on the system, neither condemning or endorsing it. “We don’t see STAR Voting as politically viable nor likely to work like its advocates believe,” FairVote wrote in December 2017. Instead of continuing to look at STAR, the organization stated they would continue to look at Rank Choice Voting, an- other form of alternative voting. No matter what type of alter- native voting solution someone supports, the point is that, in many cases, existing plurality voting can inhibit people from electing representatives that vot- ers like the most. This can be caused by political parties, can- didates, or sometimes the voters themselves. Spoiltrs One of the driving forces of STAR voting is to eliminate the “spoiler” candidate, someone who cannot possibly win an election, but gain enough sup- port to throw an election for a similar candidate. The most common example given is the 2000 presidential race, where Green Party candidate Ralph Nader was considered a spoiler. The last, major battleground for that election was in Florida, where only 537 votes separated Al Gore and George Bush, who would go on to win the election. That contentious election saw arguments on multiple fronts regarding how votes were tab- ulated, how people were regis- tered and the readability of the voting cards. But some of the blame was placed solely on Na- der being in the race. In a 2007 study in the Quar- terly Journal of Political Science, Floridian votes were examined and found that if Nader had not been in the race, Gore could have carried the state, thus giving him enough electoral votes to win the presidency. In all, 97,488 Floridians voted for Nader. See STAR page 9A