STAR voting is harder to explain than it is to use. If Lane County voters approve Measure 20-290, we’ll elect our candidates differently. We’ll abandon the old “Ebert-Siskel” system — thumbs-up for one candidate — and replace it with a “Rotten Tomatoes” system, where each reviewer assigns up to five stars for each candidate.
The five-star system is used more commonly than you may know. Amazon, eBay, Uber, and AirBNB all use the five-star system. These companies reserve the right to use those scores to arrange their listings. AirBNB tracks 5-star ratings to give preferred placement to their best hosts. Uber and Lyft may give more driving gigs to drivers who are ranked best by passengers.
The star rating is not yet ubiquitous, but things are headed that way. Store receipts now often include at the bottom a plea for customers to rate their experience. If I take a few moments to rate my pizza experience, I get free cookies with my next order.
We may feel queasy comparing politicians to pizzas, but pizza can probably absorb any resulting loss of stature. We’ve become an overly transactional society and politics has been worsened by it. It’s not the ideal situation for anyone, but it is how things are.
STAR voting would not only give candidates more plausible paths to victory. It would provide vital information for those chosen to govern. In a crowded field, one candidate could win by becoming the consensus second choice. Determined candidates would knock on every door — not only on those who appear to be undecided.
Talking with a voter who is already devoted to another candidate might raise your star rating. You might also learn something about why exactly they prefer your opponent.
That would make campaigns more interesting and more engaging. Candidates might even be seen canvassing a neighborhood together: “Score me highest and her next” or “Pick either of us, and then the other.” “We agree on most things, but differ on this one issue.”
The resulting vote tallies would be much more interesting as well, most of all to the victor. If one candidate got the most five star ratings, but failed to gather any secondary support, that’s important information for everyone involved. It could even make government more responsive to its citizens. It’s easy to “geek out” on how all those scores could be used, but that’s entirely optional for each individual.
A voter who liked it the old way could still give five stars to one candidate and no stars to the rest. “Thumbs up” is still an option.
The engineering behind STAR voting is fascinating, but only if it works. Some love knowing that inside a bell housing, a fluid coupling acts as a torque converter to planetary gearsets. But for most of us, all we know about our automatic transmission is that “D” is for Drive and “R” means Reverse. That’s enough to get things going.
Knowledgeable mechanics don’t usually make good salespeople. But cars and stars are only complicated if we want them to be. Some things are easier done than said.
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs at www.dksez.com.
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