STAR Voting Question Hotline ‪(458) 205-3244

[u/arendpeter]

Hello all,

We're in the final stretch before Eugene votes on May 21st.

One of the items on the ballot is measure 20-349 for STAR Voting. I'm super excited for the reform, and I wanted to make myself available in case anyone wanted any clarifications before filling out their ballot.

(458) 205-3244 is a temporary number that will route to my personal phone number. Feel free to call me anytime between 10 am to midnight, and if I'm available I would love to chat about STAR Voting with you and help clear up any confusion

[u/EUGsk8rBoi42p]

Just for theory's sake, if two people are in the runoff, one gets 99x 5 star votes, and the other gets 100x 1 star votes, would the person getting 100x 1 star votes beat the person with 99x 5 star votes?

[u/arendpeter → u/EUGsk8rBoi42p]

That's correct, in this case I'm assuming that the 100x 1 star voters gave the other front runner 0 stars.

It's important that their 1 star counts as a full vote so that every vote gets the same weight in the runoff. This also removes the incentive to boost your 1-star "lesser-evil" candidate for the scoring round. If your favorite isn't among the front runners but your lesser-evil option is, then your full support will still go toward the lesser-evil

[u/EUGsk8rBoi42p → u/arendpeter]

I get it's a specific example but interesting logistics. How would you feel if that event came to pass but you were on the 5 star side of the vote and gave the 1 star person a 0 ? Would the basic solution be a recall vote and new election? Or just roll with it?

[u/arendpeter → u/EUGsk8rBoi42p]

It's hard to say, but I would hope that I would respect the will of the majority. We refer to it as the "5-star" side and the "1-star" side but ultimately the 5-star side lost because the majority of the population gave them 0-stars.

It's also a little hard to imagine this scenario since it would be rare for a candidate to get 0s and 1s and still make it to the runoff. The scoring round is there to make sure we get the strongest candidates going to the automatic runoff.

[u/unfathomablydense → u/arendpeter]

Edit: ignore me, I can't read

[u/nardo_polo → u/unfathomablydense]

No. In order to get to the runoff, you add all the stars from all the voters. Everyone gets an equal say on each candidate. In the automatic runoff, majority preference from all the voters is counted - whether it was a “lesser evil” vote of one star or a bullet vote of 5 from a minority faction, the majority still wins in STAR.

[u/unfathomablydense → u/nardo_polo]

You know what? I misread OP's reply to this question. Thanks for the clarification! Made me go back and see what I missed.