The liberal stronghold of Eugene is voting during Oregon’s May 21 primary on a new method of voting in its local elections.
No, it’s not purely ranked-choice voting, which was implemented in Alaska’s general elections in 2022, along with open primaries. But it’s close, because there is ranking involved and an automatic runoff. Think of it as a hybrid.
Here’s how STAR voting works:
- – Voters score each candidate on a scale of zero to five.
- – The candidate you like the most is the one you score highest.
- – The two candidates who receive the most of the highest scores become finalists and enter an automatic runoff.
- – During the automatic runoff, a ballot counts as one vote for the finalists that the voter scored higher.
This new method was invented by a software engineers, including Mark Frohnmayer, who earned his electrical engineering degree and computer science degree from University of California Berkeley. STAR voting stands for Score Then Automatic Runoff. It was developed in 2014 after a conference at the University of Oregon organized by the Equal Vote Coalition, a nonprofit that remains the driving force behind the new system.
If STAR passes in Eugene, it will have been 10 years in the making in that city, which will be the first in the world to use it for municipal elections.
As the May 21 election nears, early voting has already begun.
But in making the case to voters, the pro-STAR group is finding that ranked-choice voting advocacy groups are not being helpful.
“The fact is, Colin Cole is an out-of-state lobbyist for a multi-million dollar conglomerate notorious for coordinated mud-slinging campaigns and the intentional spread of misinformation on voting reform,” STAR claims on its website.
Cole is a founder of Fair Vote Washington and the Seattle-based Sightline Institute, which partners with Earthjustice and has been involved in Alaska elections. Cole also used to work for the Washington State Democratic Party.
“Both he and Brian Smith are directly funded by Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) lobby organizations that see STAR as competition, as are almost all of the other organizations and individuals who submitted coordinated opposition statements for the Voters Pamphlet,” according to the STAR website.
Brian Smith is the co-founder of a group called the Tribal Democracy Project.
“STAR Voting is not something that makes the current system better,” Smith told public broadcasting. “It is a regression. It takes us backwards.”
“Publicly, the Ranked Choice Voting leadership is fairly supportive of STAR Voting. FairVote, (Colin Cole’s longtime employer and the leader of the RCV lobby,) states “we do not oppose efforts to win enactment of other “alternative” methods.” and “[STAR Voting] is superior to both vote-for-one plurality and to two-round runoff elections,” STAR says on its website.
“Given the opposition statements in the Voters Pamphlet this is Orwellian double-speak a la 1984 at its finest. No wonder FairVote is known as the “Ministry of FairVote” in Election Science circles,” the article continues, attacking the proponents of ranked-choice voting.
According to the Eugene Register-Guard, directors of a group known as “Communities of Color for Inclusive Democracy,” also make up some of the formal STAR opposition. The group has four points of contention with STAR:
- – The potential for STAR to not reflect voters’ preferences
- – The system is counterintuitive and gameable
- – It may disenfranchise voters of color
- – It’s untested
The League of Women Voters of Oregon says STAR does not meet a “majority criterion” because the majority’s first choice may lose if that candidate doesn’t reach the runoff phase. Also, if a voter gives everyone on the ballot the same score, their ballot will not count.
