The Democratic Party of Multnomah County will use STAR Voting for races with more than 2 candidates.

At our September meeting, the Multnomah County Democratic Party Central Committee became the first county party in the nation to adopt STAR voting.

“We are excited to implement STAR voting for our internal party elections,” said Lurelle Robbins, Chair of the Democratic Party of Multnomah County. “We have heard the call for elections that allow voters to vote their conscience. STAR voting seems particularly suited in our elections that choose 10-20 winners from a potential field of 30 or more candidates.”

Elections using STAR Voting include Party Officer elections, Congressional District Delegate elections, Central Committee Delegate elections, and District Leader elections as well as elections for alternates to all of those positions.

STAR stands for Score – Then – Automatic – Runoff, and that’s exactly how it works. Voters score candidates on a scale from 0 – 5 stars, then an automatic runoff between the two highest-scoring candidates determines the winner. Because each ballot already shows voters’ preferences, voters don’t need to vote a second time. The finalist preferred by a majority wins. For Multnomah County Democrats STAR Voting will be used for both single and multi-winner elections.

STAR Voting provides the benefits of a primary and a general without the need for separate elections. STAR Voting eliminates vote splitting and is highly accurate with any number of candidates in the race, so no candidates are excluded, and there’s no need to winnow the field. STAR guarantees that winners are preferred by a majority.

The Multnomah Democrats are the first to adopt STAR Voting for elections on this scale, but a number of other political parties, including the Independent Party of Oregon and the Progressive Party of Oregon have endorsed STAR Voting. Other parties across the political spectrum have taken steps towards adopting the preferential voting method at the local and statewide levels.

STAR Voting is a proposal from Oregon-based non-profit The Equal Vote Coalition, and is currently the subject of two ballot initiatives in Oregon: STAR Voting for Eugene and STAR Voting for Lane County are currently collecting signatures to qualify for the 2020 ballot.

The effort to adopt STAR Voting for party elections got a recent kickstart at the statewide level when it was found to be the only voting system to meet a vast array of elections criteria with a single ballot. STAR Voting elections are fully auditable, transparent, secure, and precinct summable. STAR is fully compatible with paper ballots, can be counted by hand, or tabulated automatically.

To use STAR Voting in your own election or decision-making process, create your own ballot at star.vote

To volunteer or sign up for updates, email join@equal.vote

To learn more, please visit starvoting.us