Sara Wolk is the Executive Director of the Equal Vote Coalition, a non-profit fighting for true equality in the vote itself. Sara is a dedicated community organizer who has been leading the Oregon movement for voting reform since 2016 when she was elected to chair the RCV-Oregon research committee on alternative voting methods. It was the work of this committee which changed her mind. STAR Voting was the only method that delivered on the committee's core goals. With a background in sustainability, design, and music, she is looking forward to building the kind of coalition that can reshape democracy. Systemic problems require systemic solutions.
I added a sentence on explicitly opting in to email notifications under section 1. From what I read I think we may need this in there for legal reasons.
"If you create an account on the Website, you are explicitly authorizing the Forum to send you emails regarding forum activity and updates. You may opt out of most email notifications at any time."
Great. I updated it as suggested. If Connor and David approve it as well we can call it done and check the Code of Conduct off the list.
Code of Conduct:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ExGrryHIFOjSfPiTtHYBRPw7GQY8lRsCfWiWsLEsImc/edit?usp=sharing
Adopted February 17th, 2021
@Keith Exactly. And the intent is not only to reduce the need for strategic voting, but to actually incentivize honest voting, and to ensure that the system is fair and equal. This is the key to eliminating an "electability" bias, or status quo glass ceiling. There are a lot of reasons why and it's not just about any one of these reasons in isolation. I see it as a very empowering voting method overall.
For voters who don't like the frontrunners, their vote is still as powerful as a voter who does have a strong candidate on their side. The full repercussions of this are hard to quantify, but this is one reason that I think STAR is the most powerful single winner voting method to break two party domination.
STAR Voting is designed to maximize both utilitarianism and finding majority supported winners where possible. I look at it like a debate between quality and quantity. Both are important. In STAR Voting the scoring round measures quality of support, (how much do the voters like the various candidates. Then, the runoff measures quantity or number of supporters, (between the two front-runners, which do you prefer.)
As for why I believe STAR Voting is more fair and representative compared to Score, of course I have to start with the disclaimer that Score is a very good system, and they get the same winner most of the time, but in Score Voting if I vote honestly and don't give any front-runners a top score, then my vote's impact is less than if I had strategically given my lesser-evil a top score.
Another shortcoming with Score that is addressed by STAR is if some voters fail to use the full scale. Strategically speaking, the best strategy in both methods is always to give your favorite 5 stars, but it's to be expected that some voters will give a mediocre score to a mediocre favorite, especially if they are new to the system. Unless you normalize scores, Score voting gives voters a chance at an equally weighted vote, but doesn't actually guarantee it. Hopefully this will be corrected with voter education and good instructions, but with STAR there's the added failsafe that the runoff is binary. Ultimately your vote is just as powerful as everyone else's.
These voters, voters who are currently marginalized in our current system, should have just as powerful a vote as a voter who does support a frontrunner. Guaranteed. STAR Voting does that. If your favorite can't win, you can give your favorite 5 stars, give your lesser evil 1 star, and that will still ensure that if it comes down to it, your fully weighted vote will help prevent your worst case scenario. That's how STAR Voting prevents tyranny of the Majority. If your lesser-evil is actually substantially better than your worst case scenario you can give them a better score.
As far as I know STAR may be the only method where even if none of the candidates you like can win, your vote can still make a difference and help prevent your worst case scenario.
I think that's a bit confusing and redundant. Having replies only show up under the comment they are replying to would be better.
@Keith Exactly. And the intent is not only to reduce the need for strategic voting, but to actually incentivize honest voting, and to ensure that the system is fair and equal. This is the key to eliminating an "electability" bias, or status quo glass ceiling. There are a lot of reasons why and it's not just about any one of these reasons in isolation. I see it as a very empowering voting method overall.
For voters who don't like the frontrunners, their vote is still as powerful as a voter who does have a strong candidate on their side. The full repercussions of this are hard to quantify, but this is one reason that I think STAR is the most powerful single winner voting method to break two party domination.
STAR Voting is designed to maximize both utilitarianism and finding majority supported winners where possible. I look at it like a debate between quality and quantity. Both are important. In STAR Voting the scoring round measures quality of support, (how much do the voters like the various candidates. Then, the runoff measures quantity or number of supporters, (between the two front-runners, which do you prefer.)
As for why I believe STAR Voting is more fair and representative compared to Score, of course I have to start with the disclaimer that Score is a very good system, and they get the same winner most of the time, but in Score Voting if I vote honestly and don't give any front-runners a top score, then my vote's impact is less than if I had strategically given my lesser-evil a top score.
Another shortcoming with Score that is addressed by STAR is if some voters fail to use the full scale. Strategically speaking, the best strategy in both methods is always to give your favorite 5 stars, but it's to be expected that some voters will give a mediocre score to a mediocre favorite, especially if they are new to the system. Unless you normalize scores, Score voting gives voters a chance at an equally weighted vote, but doesn't actually guarantee it. Hopefully this will be corrected with voter education and good instructions, but with STAR there's the added failsafe that the runoff is binary. Ultimately your vote is just as powerful as everyone else's.
These voters, voters who are currently marginalized in our current system, should have just as powerful a vote as a voter who does support a frontrunner. Guaranteed. STAR Voting does that. If your favorite can't win, you can give your favorite 5 stars, give your lesser evil 1 star, and that will still ensure that if it comes down to it, your fully weighted vote will help prevent your worst case scenario. That's how STAR Voting prevents tyranny of the Majority. If your lesser-evil is actually substantially better than your worst case scenario you can give them a better score.
As far as I know STAR may be the only method where even if none of the candidates you like can win, your vote can still make a difference and help prevent your worst case scenario.
@SaraWolk said in Calling for the Next Council Meeting!:
I propose we meet next on Wednesday Feb 17th, at 7:30 Pacific.
Hi All, I'm confirming and reminding you all that we have our next forum meeting tomorrow at 7:30 PST.
Please invite people who would make great moderators.
See you there!
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89174966453
Meeting ID: 891 7496 6453
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Meeting ID: 891 7496 6453
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We= the Forum council and community. It's inclusive.
Fora = argh! I don't think this is a word that is known well enough to be on our splash page. At worst people won't understand, or will find the sentence pretentious. At best it'll detract attention from what we are trying to say.
I'm not going to try and convince you to go with something grammatically incorrect. I guess we can skip that entire line? Or even skip the whole 2nd paragraph? Or if you all like it we can just keep the last draft from Jack. I'm okay with any of it am excited to see this looking good enough to go live with!
Great. I updated it as suggested. If Connor and David approve it as well we can call it done and check the Code of Conduct off the list.
@Jack-Waugh I don't know about fixing the code, but the widescreen margin spacing is looking better in your image.
I was picturing the buttons on the white background below the banner, partly because I made my mock up using the format you already have in the pink votingtheory.org page in the hopes that you could just plug in my images to the existing layout.
Creating the elements from scratch in the code is more professional, so whatever is easier for you and looks in proportion is fine with me. Whether the buttons are in the header or below it, I imagine it will look fine either way.
@Marylander I added a line to explicitly agree to opt in for default emails to our terms of service.
Okay, should we invite a new user to set up an account and report back on the emails they get without changing their notifications? I'll post an action item in the #forum slack.