"Decent Backup" — a 5 for your favorite, a 4 for your insurance

Favorite at 5, a strong second at 4, everyone else blank. The everyday super-power of a scored ballot.

← One of thirteen voting styles. Every style is legal and counted; this page is what this one means, when it fits, and what it trades away.

What this ballot says

"Carmen — and if not her, Ella is nearly as good." The 5 gives Carmen everything; the 4 tells the count that Ella is a genuinely acceptable outcome; the blanks put everyone else at 0.

When it fits

• You have a clear favorite and a second choice you'd be happy with — the most common honest opinion there is.
• You remember choose-one elections punishing this exact opinion (supporting a second choice used to mean abandoning your first) and want the fix.

The trade-off, honestly

Here's the part worth saying carefully. In the scoring round, the 4 can never hurt Carmen — her 5 is a 5 no matter what else you mark; scores are independent. What the 4 does do: it helps Ella climb — possibly past a candidate you scored 0, and that's exactly what you asked it to do. And if Carmen and Ella both reach the runoff, your ballot says "Carmen over Ella, but Ella is fine" — the 5-vs-4 gap is a full vote for Carmen in that head-to-head. The backup only "costs" you anything in the one scenario where it also just saved your election. The fine print, stated fairly: STAR's honest limits.

This exact style in a real election

In the runnable style-gallery election, the decent-backup row is 0,5,0,0,0,4 — Bianca 5, Frank 4. Both of this voter's picks became the finalists: the 4 helped Frank get there, the 5-vs-4 gap sent the ballot's full runoff vote to Bianca, and Bianca won. One ballot, both jobs done, nothing sacrificed.

Related

• Not Much of a Backup — the same idea with the volume turned down to 1
• Nuanced — backups on every rung, the full-information ballot