STAR is complicated to explain to people whose eyes glaze over when you start talking math and also has the problem that you can't tell someone how their vote will be counted until every other vote is counted first.

People who like STAR tend to overestimate how much those things matter when it comes to getting public buy in.

That's among the upsides of approval voting - it's dead easy to explain and already works with existing machines meaning it's cheaper to implement. It's biggest downside is arguably that it tends to trend towards moderate candidates with broad appeal, ones that are "good enough" for a wide assortment of people rather than necessarily being anyone's favorite.

[–] chaogomu@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

STAR, rate these candidates on a scale of 0-5 multiple candidates can have the same rating. Done. How it's counted? Easy, the top two rated candidates go into an automatic run-off, if you rated A higher than B, your vote goes to A. if you rated them the same, your vote is counted as "no preference". Done.

That second step is mostly to get around some of the anti-democracy laws on the books in various states, but it also has the benefit of winnowing out clone candidates.