Robert Harris and Mark Frohnmayer

Harris is co-chair of the Independent Party of Oregon. Frohnmayer is founder of the Equal Vote Coalition.

“The partisan political process is a cesspool.” “My vote doesn’t matter.” “I can’t vote for my favorite candidate because it would help my least favorite to win.” “Why can’t we have more choices?”

We’ve all heard statements like these from our fellow Oregonians. Many of us have said them ourselves. At the root of these complaints is a deeply broken voting method and election structure that divides us, minimizes our choices and magnifies the influence of special interests in the political process. Now, two organizations dedicated to improving elections and empowering more voters are working together to reinvent our political process at its foundation.

The Equal Vote Coalition and the Independent Party of Oregon are teaming up to hold a fundamentally new kind of primary election from Tuesday April 28 to Tuesday, May 12, open to all Independent and non-affiliated voters who were registered by March 1.

This primary election is historic for several reasons.

This will be the first time in history that the STAR ­– Score then Automatic Runoff – voting system will be used in a binding statewide political election. Instead of limiting voters to choosing only one candidate in the field, STAR allows voters to score each candidate on a familiar 0-5 scale. In STAR voting, the winner is determined in two simple steps. First, the scores for all the candidates are added up. The second step is an automatic runoff between the two highest scoring candidates. In the runoff, your full vote is automatically assigned to whichever of the top two you rated higher. The use of STAR in this election will give an unprecedented degree of insight into the level of support political candidates have among Oregon’s Independent and non-affiliated voters.

The Independent Party is running a self-funded, open primary that will empower more than one million voters who are normally locked out from the taxpayer sponsored Democratic or Republican primaries. This is vitally important as non-affiliated voters have become the fastest growing group of voters in the state, thanks to Oregon’s motor voter automatic registration system. It’s time for them to have an equal say in the process and assert their influence in a united way.

All leading candidates for statewide office like secretary of state will be on the same ballot, including Democrats, Republicans, Independents and non-affiliated candidates. This offers a chance not only for voters to confer the Independent nomination, but also provide data as to how these voters rate the relative strengths of candidates across party lines.

The “choose only one” voting method we use now suffers from vote-splitting, commonly known as the spoiler effect, where similar candidates on the ballot can divide supporters’ votes, leading to the election of a candidate opposed by the majority. Because STAR voting counts voters’ levels of support for all of the candidates, it eliminates the spoiler effect, and allows for competitive elections with a wide field of contenders. Voter satisfaction will improve as voters feel empowered to express their true preferences without having to worry about supporting only someone deemed “electable” just to stop their least favorite candidate from winning.

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This primary will also include a poll seeking voters’ presidential preference, giving the nation insight into how independent swing voters feel about this important contest.

This Independent Party primary election will be conducted entirely online. In contrast to the recent Wisconsin primary, where voters were compelled to vote in person amidst a global pandemic, Oregon has for decades led the nation with the convenience and safety of voting at home. Still, because of the impact of COVID-19, we made the decision not to put our volunteers at risk handling potentially thousands of pieces of mail. We have built an auditable online framework for the purposes of security and reliability, that includes emailed voter receipts, photographic credential uploads, and a voter-verifiable public record of the votes cast.

Oregon has a long history of leading electoral reform dating back to the beginning of the 20th century. We pioneered the initiative and referendum system, vote-by-mail and motor voter, and were one of the first to adopt the presidential primary. Now, in this time of partisan rancor, gridlock and electoral disillusion, there is an opportunity for Oregon to lead the way once again.

This election will mark the first time in Oregon history that a third-party election is open to more voters than either the Democratic or Republican primaries. Voters will have an opportunity to experiment with a new system and to create a context for candidates to reach out beyond their own partisan bases. Especially now, it is important to do what we can to make elected officials more responsive to the civic demands of the general public.

We ask all Independent and non-affiliated Oregonians to take advantage of this opportunity to make their voices heard.