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"Traditional" — the choose-one habit, transplanted

One 5 for your favorite, every other row left blank. The familiar single-choice vote, written on a 5-star 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.

A STAR ballot marked traditional-style: Carmen scored 5; Andre, Blake, David, and Ella left blank, which counts as 0 for each.

What this ballot says

"Carmen. Period." Carmen gets the full 5; every other row is blank, and a blank simply counts as 0. To the count, this voter loves Carmen and rates everyone else at the very bottom — even candidates they may never have thought about.

When it fits

  • You genuinely support one candidate and genuinely rate everyone else at zero — then this ballot is exactly honest, not a shortcut.
  • You're new to scored ballots and reach for the familiar one-mark habit. It works: your vote is legal, full-weight, and can't be spoiled.

The trade-off, honestly

The blanks are real information — "everyone else: 0" — whether or not you meant them that deeply. If Carmen makes the runoff, your full vote backs her there. But if she doesn't, your ballot scores both finalists 0 — Equal Support, no preference — and you sit out the final head-to-head by your own choice. A single mark spends one point of voice out of the twenty-five the ballot offers. Nothing about that is penalized; it's just under-used.

This exact style in a real election

In the runnable style-gallery election (different names, same eight styles — one ballot per style), the traditional row is 0,5,0,0,0,0: a lone 5 for Bianca. Bianca reached the runoff, so this ballot's full vote counted for her there — and she won. The happy path. The dedicated two-line demo of the unhappy path — your lone pick missing the final — is the bullet-vote case: reader page · 03a_c3_b3_style-bullet-vote.yaml.

What if everyone voted this way?

Then the 5-star ballot has nothing left to work with. Here is that election, live on BetterVoting — three voters, the same five candidates, every voter marking exactly one:

▶ Live on BetterVoting: vote · results ↗ (election c8h3tb, Test ID BV2256).

Voter Andre Blake Carmen David Ella
1 — "Carmen. Period." – – 5 – –
2 — "Ella. Period." – – – – 5
3 — "Ella. Period." – – – – 5 
--- STAR Voting Method (single winner) ---

[STAR Voting]
 Tabulating 3 ballots.
Count × Andre,Blake,Carmen,David,Ella
    2 ×     0,    0,     0,    0,   5
    1 ×     0,    0,     5,    0,   0

[STAR Voting: Scoring Round]
 The two highest-scoring candidates advance to the next round.
   Ella          -- 10 -- First place
   Carmen        --  5 -- Second place
   Andre         --  0
   Blake         --  0
   David         --  0
 Ella and Carmen advance.

[STAR Voting: Automatic Runoff Round]
 The candidate preferred in the most head-to-head matchups wins.
   Ella          -- 2 -- First place
   Carmen        -- 1
   Equal Support -- 0
 Ella wins.
   Runoff math:
     3  ballots cast
   − 0  Equal Support (no preference between the two finalists)
     ─
     3  voters with a preference  (majority = 2)
           Ella 2 (67%)  ·  Carmen 1 (33%)

[STAR Voting: Winner — STAR Voting Method (single winner)]
 Ella

The scoring round has become nothing but a first-choice tally, and the runoff has nothing left to add — the two finalists were already the only candidates anyone said anything about. Andre, Blake and David finish on zero having had nothing said about them: not "we considered them and rated them last," simply nothing. A ballot carrying one bit per voter gives the method one bit to read, so this count could not have done better than the choose-one ballot it is imitating.

Said plainly: as an approach and as a strategy, this is a poor use of a STAR ballot — unless one candidate really is your only acceptable choice, period, in which case it is exactly honest and you should vote it. Everything on this page still holds: nothing is penalized, nothing can be spoiled, and a backup score can never hurt your favorite. You are simply choosing not to use the ballot. (Full count: bv2256_c8h3tb_traditional_style.md.)