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.”
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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