/r/50501 Mirror

(I only mentioned the fractional voting one because you didn't explain star voting at all so I had nothing to compare it with. I like star voting now that I know more about it having looked it up. If you want to convince people your favourite voting system is good, briefly explain it whenever you introduce it to a discussion, or link to an explanation!)

Star is pretty good, and its main advantage over fractional votes is simplicity.

But it's two rounds, not one. You can argue that you only enter the data into the computer system once, but that's true of fractional voting too - the computer system does the calculations, and it's not sensible to do fractional voting by moving pieces of paper around at all. If you want to have a paper-based system of counting, you need two rounds of counting anyway with star.

Star's disadvantage is that you can only express preference for the final round between 6 distinct candidates, and if there are enough candidates on the ballot, you start to lose information.

But these aren't important distinctions, neither are your points about ranking. The important points are:

1. Does it make a fair decision that represents the views of the electorate as they're expressed on the ballot?
2. Does it discourage forms of tactical voting so that the electorate are more likely to put their true views on the ballot?
3. Can it win and maintain popular support?

Fractional voting is slightly better at the first two, but star is far, far better at winning and maintaining popular support because you can't truthfully paint it as hard to understand like you can fractional voting and other forms of ranked voting, and you can report how people won in a clear and understandable way. Star is definitely better for public votes in hotly contested elections with low trust levels.