• “Choose One” Plurality Voting is only accurate when there are two candidates in the race. That’s why we have a two party system. 
• When there are more than two candidates, vote-splitting can cause a majority coalition to end up divided and conquered (aka the Spoiler Effect).
• Voters often have to be strategic and vote for the lesser of two evils.

Learn more here.

• STAR Voting is a more expressive voting method using a 5-star ballot. 
• Voters give their favorite(s) 5 stars, their last choice(s) 0 stars, and score other candidates in between to indicate their preference order and level of support. Those you leave blank get a zero.
• If you don’t have a preference, you can give candidates the same scores.

Learn more here.

• The very first campaigns for STAR Voting launched in 2017 in both Lane and Multnomah County. At the time, STAR Voting and Equal Vote, the organization behind the movement, were both brand new, but even with an underfunded grassroots campaign, STAR was able to make it onto the ballot in Lane County, where it received 48% of the vote in 2018.

Learn more here.

 

• In 2019 we collected signatures for a pair of new initiatives in Eugene and Lane County. In only 90 days, the Eugene campaign collected the signatures needed, including a 30% buffer, but the local elections division blocked it from the ballot by throwing out a number of signatures which we later proved had in fact been valid. There is an ongoing court case filed with Lane County Elections and the City of Eugene to count the additional 11 valid signatures needed and put the measure on the ballot. If and when that case wins in court Eugene, we’ll see STAR Voting on the ballot at the next election.
• For county initiatives like Lane County, the signature collection window is a full two years long. The STAR Voting for Lane County campaign was on track to make the 2020 ballot after a full year of canvassing with volunteers only when the pandemic hit. They made the hard choice to suspend in person canvassing in March of 2020, and requested an extension be granted. Despite having said otherwise, the Lane County Commissioners ultimately decided not to grant that extension, and the roughly 10k signatures collected all expired in 2020.

Learn more here.

 

• Between voter disenfranchisement by the city of Eugene and Lane County Elections and a pandemic, the STAR Voting movement had some serious setbacks, but ultimately refocused on growing the organization and the movement. That growth needed to happen anyway, and the pandemic provided the opportunity to do quite a bit of work that has exponentially increased our potential to launch and win STAR Voting campaigns going forward both in Oregon and around the country.

• If adopted, the initiative will make STAR Voting the default voting method for all Oregon elections, including local, statewide, federal, and presidential elections.
• For partisan elections, a STAR Voting partisan primary for each party would be held, which would advance the top candidate from each party to a STAR Voting general election.
• For nonpartisan elections, the act would eliminate primaries as the default and voters would only need to vote once, in November. Jurisdictions may opt to have a top-five primary for a given race if desired.
• Jurisdictions that have already adopted other alternative voting methods would be unaffected, and jurisdictions would be allowed to change or upgrade their voting method in the future.

Learn more here.

• Right now, we’re collecting the first 1000 signatures we need to submit to the Attorney General. We have two slightly different initiatives in case the Attorney General decides to delay one. If that happens, we’ll be able to push forward with the other one. If it doesn’t, then we’ll simply pick the one the voters like more and continue with that one.
• The only substantial difference between the two versions is whether it includes implementing STAR Voting for presidential elections. 2024-011 includes presidential races while 2024-012 does not.

• Under this STAR Voting Act, 5 star ballots can be converted into a more simple “popular vote” as needed for party ballot access, delegate allocation rules, and national reporting of preliminary election results for races that use different voting methods in different jurisdictions (such as if one state or county used STAR and another used RCV or Choose-One).
• A candidate will get a simplified “popular vote” from a voter if they are that voter’s favorite. (This basically converts 5 star ballots to Approval ballots for these purposes.) Note that the “popular vote” conversion is not used for actually electing candidates. Candidates are elected using STAR Voting. 
• If the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) were to go into effect, this calculation would be used for calculating the National Popular Vote unless further protocols were adopted. Equal Vote is working with NPVIC on additional legislation that would ensure that National Popular Vote would work as intended and be implemented fairly and consistently across all states which use alternative voting methods.

• To get on the November 2024 ballot, we'll need to collect around 175,000 signatures by July 5th, 2024. Then voters will have the chance to vote YES!

• No. While the two methods do have a lot in common, STAR Voting is a modern voting method invented to better deliver on the goals of RCV, while addressing known issues with the 150 year old system.
• In RCV, not all rankings given are actually counted, and ignoring this ballot data leads to serious issues in competitive elections. In STAR Voting, all ballot data is counted and every ballot is included in the deciding round of the election.
• STAR Voting is simpler and more transparent for voters, more accurate and more resistant to strategy, and easier to officiate and audit as well. 
• STAR Voting is tallied using simple addition in only two rounds, so it can be tallied quickly and easily at the local level, and it also scales well, while RCV requires centralized tabulation, making it less secure, creating logistical and legal issues, and causing significant delays before results can be reported.

Learn more here.

• STAR Voting can be used for multi-winner races as well, and there is a proportional representation version, called Proportional STAR Voting, that jurisdictions could adopt in the future if desired.

Learn more here.

• Yes! Your ballot is your one vote and your one vote goes to the finalist you prefer.
• The legal definition of One-Person-One-Vote is an Equally-Weighted Vote. STAR Voting ensures that all votes are equally powerful no matter how many candidates you have on your side and whether or not your favorite can win.
• STAR Voting is not only fully constitutional in Oregon, but it's constitutional and legally viable all over the country.

Learn more here.

• No voting method can guarantee that winners will always have a majority of all votes cast because a majority winner doesn’t always exist, such as elections where there are three or more polarized factions who refuse to coalition.
• When voters are able to support multiple options, like in STAR Voting, it's also possible for there to be multiple candidates who had the support of a majority of voters. For example pizza and burritos could both be majority supported dinner options in a family. In these cases, STAR voting not only ensures that the winner is majority preferred, but also that the strongest majority supported candidate wins.

Learn more here.

• Yes! Because the scores of every voter are counted for every candidate, candidates are incentivized to earn support from across the whole electorate rather than just lobby their core base or their faction.

• STAR Voting is highly accurate with any number of candidates in the race, so there’s no need for a primary for nonpartisan elections in most cases. 
• Primaries generally have lower turnout than general elections, which means they aren’t as representative as they could be.
• Eliminating unnecessary primaries makes running for office more accessible and affordable for candidates, shortens the campaign season, and would save taxpayers money as well.

• STAR Voting would simplify and streamline our elections processes, and would save money in the long run. 
• Initial transition costs would likely be recouped within the first few election cycles.
• STAR Voting is compatible with our existing elections infrastructure and wouldn't require new equipment. The main upfront costs would include voter education, software upgrades, and one-time certification costs.

Learn more here.

---

• While simply electing the score winner would still be a massive improvement over our current Choose-one Voting, the combination of the limited 0 to 5 range and the automatic runoff addresses a few shortfalls of plain Score Voting.
• An important consideration in the design of any system meant to be used by people is cognitive load. Most people can only hold 5 to 7 different things in their mind at a time to compare to each other. Have you ever voted in an election with 20+ candidates? It’s overwhelming to consider that many options. Most voters will not have strong opinions about more than 5 or 6 candidates in most elections. By maximizing expression within the confines of typical cognitive load, STAR Voting levels the playing field for voters so voters who have the desire and time to thoroughly research every candidate in a large field can’t gain an edge. 
• Because each voter’s one full vote goes to the finalist they prefer, it is in their best interest to honestly show a distinction between as many pairs of candidates as possible to ensure their vote makes a difference. Because the range of the ballot is limited to 6 distinct ratings, voters who want to express those preferences would need to leverage all of those ratings. Again, this levels the playing field for voters because it brings some objectivity into the process of scoring, i.e. two different voters will likely both give their “third choice” candidate 3 stars.
• The automatic runoff improves STAR’s legal viability. Every state has its own election code, and they’re all a bit different. Since they were all written with Choose-one Voting in mind, voting methods for local reforms need to be compatible with that language. Legally defining a “vote” under plain Score Voting is far messier than under STAR, which gives every voter exactly one vote toward the finalist they prefer. Additionally, many municipalities are subject to majority clauses in their respective state laws that tend to require them to run two separate elections for a single race. Because STAR Voting always elects a majority preferred winner, many municipalities can implement STAR Voting as a way to skip unneeded elections if they so desire. This also saves localities heaps of money in the long run.
• Scoring methods and ranking methods tend to have some opposite and undesirable effects in the kinds of candidates they elect. The big breakthrough of STAR is the hybridization of these effects so they balance each other out. STAR Voting has inspired the invention of many new (and more complicated) hybrid voting methods, and they mostly all perform better than their non-hybrid counterparts. While STAR Voting continues to be our champion proposal for real-world reform, STAR is also the foundation of a renaissance in voting theory.

• If you have a strong preference between candidates, you should show it, but regardless, the scores you give will always help your favorites advance.
• If you gave both finalists the same score, that is counted as a vote of no-preference between those two. You like or dislike them equally. 
• The ability to give candidates equal support, if desired, is critical for maintaining accurate elections when there are many candidates in a race.

• Under the current system (and in RCV), voting for your favorite is not necessarily a good idea. STAR Voting was invented to ensure that voters can and should vote their conscience. With STAR Voting, honesty is the best policy.
• The best strategy is to follow the instructions and give your favorite or favorite(s) 5 stars, your least-favorite(s) 0 stars, and to show your honest preference order.

Learn more here.

• STAR Voting has not demonstrated high or problematic levels of bullet voting. Across the thousands of elections and polls held with STAR, the trend is that the vast majority of voters do vote expressively, scoring multiple candidates. The data shows clear trends that, as you would expect, voters who have multiple candidates on their side are more likely to score multiple candidates than voters who genuinely support only one candidate.
• Because your full vote automatically goes to the finalist you prefer, it’s not only safe to vote your conscience by scoring candidates beyond your favorite if you’d like to, it’s in your best interest to leverage your entire 5-star ballot to show your honest preferences between pairs of candidates if you have any.

Learn more here.

• Nope! Some of the most common reasons potential voters give for why they don’t vote are that they feel there are no good candidates to vote for or that their vote doesn’t make a difference. STAR Voting addresses these issues by leveling the playing field for both candidates and voters.
• In STAR Voting, your full vote automatically goes to the finalist you prefer, so no matter how much you like or dislike the candidates, your vote always makes a difference.

• Yes. Any STAR election can be fully audited and tallied following best practices for election security. STAR Voting is not only transparent and secure when officiated well, but, unlike Ranked Choice Voting, STAR Voting can be tallied decentrally and asynchronously, keeping it robust against scaled election attacks even in geographically-spread and high-profile elections.

Learn more here.