Cliff City food trucks — everyone scores 0 or 3-5, nothing between¶
Generated from 02_c4_b40_cliff-city.yaml — do not edit by hand. Regenerate: python STARVote_LH_tabulation_engine/tools_adam/scripts/build_yaml_pages.py.
Method: STAR (single winner) · 1 seat · Expected winner: Churro
▶ Live on BetterVoting: vote · results ↗ (election fm8cbv · test BV2235).
Scenario¶
A whole town votes like it's Approval-with-a-volume-knob: every ballot is either 0 ('not my truck') or 3-5 ('one of mine'). Nobody uses 1 or 2 - the middle of the scale is a ghost town. Cliff ballots are the halfway house between Approval (one bit) and full STAR expressiveness; the test is what the all-or-mostly ballots do to the score distribution and how much runoff-deciding information survives the cliff.
The electorate (40 ballots, all individual rows): - Arepa crowd: 8 voters (6 cliff35, 1 slate, 1 cliff34) - Bao crowd: 16 voters (12 cliff35, 2 slate, 2 cliff34) - Churro crowd: 9 voters (5 slate, 3 cliff34, 1 cliff35) - grazers: 7 voters (3 cliff34, 2 chaos, 1 anyone_but, 1 flat)
Ballot styles in play (taxonomy: 01_STAR/01_Learn/voting_styles/README.md): - cliff35: cliff ballot: 0 or 3-5, nothing in between - slate: partisan slate: equal 5s for the in-group, 0 outside - anyone_but: 5 for everyone except the villain (0) - cliff34: sliver ballot: 0 or 3-4 only - chaos: pure noise (fuzzing voter) - flat: flat-liner: same score for everyone
What the frozen seed produced: Scoring Round Bao 100, Churro 99, Arepa 52, Dumpling 46. Runoff Churro 15 vs Bao 14 (Equal Support 11). STAR winner: Churro. Condorcet winner Churro (agrees). Choose-One (Plurality) would elect Bao. RCV-IRV would elect Bao. The engine flags the classic center-squeeze signature (RCV-IRV the lone outlier).
RANDOM-BUT-HUMAN, reproducible: generated by 06_Other/ballot_style_lab/generate_ballot_styles.py (scenario 'cliff_city', seed 123) - utilities sampled from the faction model above, then rendered through each voter's ballot style. Per 07_Concepts/topics/simulate_utilities_not_ballots.md this is the 'stress-test the tabulator' job (with human-shaped renderings), not a method-welfare comparison. Regenerate byte-identically: python generate_ballot_styles.py --emit cliff_city
Ballots¶
Row 1 = candidate names; each later row is one voter's 0–5 scores (a N × prefix = N identical ballots).
Markers on these ballots: - blank · ~ race abstention · & candidate abstention · ? spoiled · % spoiled+reissued — all tabulate as 0 (reported honestly).
Arepa, Bao, Churro, Dumpling
0, 5, 4, 0
0, 5, 0, 0
5, -, -, -
5, 0, 5, 5
0, 5, 0, 0
0, 5, 4, 0
4, 0, 0, 4
0, 3, 4, 0
5, 0, 0, 0
0, 0, 5, 0
0, 0, 5, 0
1, 3, 4, 0
0, 5, 0, 4
0, 5, 4, 0
0, 5, 0, 0
0, 4, 4, 0
0, 4, 4, 0
0, 5, 0, 4
0, 0, 0, 4
0, 0, 4, 0
0, 0, 5, 0
0, 5, 0, 4
5, 0, 4, 0
-, 5, -, -
0, 5, 5, 0
0, 0, 5, 5
3, 3, 3, 3
0, 0, 3, 5
0, 4, 0, 0
4, 0, 4, 0
5, 4, 5, 0
5, 0, 0, 0
5, 0, 4, 0
0, 0, 5, 0
-, 5, 5, 5
0, 0, 4, 3
0, 5, 0, 0
0, 5, 0, 0
5, 0, 0, 0
0, 5, 0, 0
What the engine says¶
The count, step by step — the rounds and how the winner is reached:
[Divergence from STAR]
STAR = Churro
Choose-One (Plurality) = Bao (differs from STAR)
RCV-IRV = Bao (differs from STAR)
Note: 10 of 40 ballots (25%) had equal non-zero scores, so their ranks
were decided by candidate priority order. The RCV-IRV result may be
an artifact of score-to-rank tie-breaking rather than a deep
difference.
Note: Ranked Robin (RCV-RR) agrees with STAR, so RCV-IRV is the lone
outlier — the classic center-squeeze signature.
Full round-by-round reports (generated for review):
RCV-IRV rounds: cases_tabulated/02_c4_b40_cliff-city_RCV-IRV_tabulated.txt
[Runoff Reversal]
- Score Round Winner(s) = (Bao)
- Runoff Round Winner = (Churro)
Candidate Bao earned the highest total score, but
Candidate Churro won the automatic runoff — not a malfunction,
STAR working as designed: the runoff elects the finalist preferred
by the majority (of voters with a preference).
--- STAR Voting Method (single winner) ---
[STAR Voting]
Tabulating 40 ballots.
Count × Arepa,Bao,Churro,Dumpling
6 × 0, 5, 0, 0
4 × 0, 0, 5, 0
3 × 0, 5, 4, 0
3 × 5, 0, 0, 0
3 × 0, 5, 0, 4
2 × 0, 4, 4, 0
2 × 5, 0, 4, 0
1 × 5, -, -, -
1 × 5, 0, 5, 5
1 × 4, 0, 0, 4
1 × 0, 3, 4, 0
1 × 1, 3, 4, 0
1 × 0, 0, 0, 4
1 × 0, 0, 4, 0
1 × -, 5, -, -
1 × 0, 5, 5, 0
1 × 0, 0, 5, 5
1 × 3, 3, 3, 3
1 × 0, 0, 3, 5
1 × 0, 4, 0, 0
1 × 4, 0, 4, 0
1 × 5, 4, 5, 0
1 × -, 5, 5, 5
1 × 0, 0, 4, 3
('-' = left blank / abstained; '0' = scored zero — both count as 0 stars.)
[STAR Voting: Scoring Round]
The two highest-scoring candidates advance to the next round.
Bao -- 100 -- First place
Churro -- 99 -- Second place
Arepa -- 52
Dumpling -- 46
Bao and Churro advance.
[STAR Voting: Automatic Runoff Round]
The candidate preferred in the most head-to-head matchups wins.
Churro -- 15 -- First place
Bao -- 14
Equal Support -- 11
Churro wins.
Runoff math:
40 ballots cast
− 11 Equal Support (no preference between the two finalists)
──
29 voters with a preference (majority = 15)
Churro 15 (52%) · Bao 14 (48%)
[STAR Voting: Winner — STAR Voting Method (single winner)]
Churro
Full audit — preference matrix, Condorcet, and score distribution¶
--- Runoff (Preference) Matrix ---
Head-to-head / pairwise comparison
Legend: For - Equal Support - Against
* indicates Top 2 Finalist
| Arepa | * Bao | * Churro | Dumpling |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arepa > | --- |10 - 10 - 20 | 7 - 16 - 17 | 9 - 23 - 8 |
* Bao > | 20 - 10 - 10 | --- |14 - 11 - 15 |20 - 14 - 6 |
* Churro > | 17 - 16 - 7 |15 - 11 - 14 | --- |18 - 16 - 6 |
Dumpling > | 8 - 23 - 9 | 6 - 14 - 20 | 6 - 16 - 18 | --- |
[Condorcet Winner]
Condorcet Winner: Churro — matches the STAR winner
[Condorcet Loser]
Condorcet Loser: Dumpling — loses every head-to-head matchup
[Score Distribution] (how many ballots gave each star rating)
Score
Candidate 5 4 3 2 1 0 Abs | Total Avg all Avg rated
Arepa 8 2 1 0 1 26 2 | 52 1.3 1.4
Bao 15 4 3 0 0 17 1 | 100 2.5 2.6
Churro 9 12 2 0 0 15 2 | 99 2.5 2.6
Dumpling 4 5 2 0 0 27 2 | 46 1.2 1.2
Avg all = Total / all ballots — a blank counts as 0, so this is the Total the Scoring Round ranks on, per ballot.
Avg rated = Total / the ballots that scored this candidate (Abs excluded) — support among voters who had an opinion.
Everything in one file: the _tabulated mirror (regenerated on every run; every analysis forced on).
Run it yourself:
python STARVote_LH_tabulation_engine/starvote_larry_hastings.py 06_Other/ballot_style_lab/cases/02_c4_b40_cliff-city.yaml
See also¶
- Methods disagree on this election — its entry in the divergence review ledger
- Center squeeze (topic hub)
- Condorcet efficiency (topic hub)
- Runoff reversal (worked set)
- Glossary · all cases by method
More cases in this set: 01_c3_b31_graders-divide · 03_c4_b33_bullet-storm · 04_c4_b47_noise-soup · 05_c3_b38_squeeze-survives · 06_c4_b24_narrow-bands · 07a_c5_b36_herb-council-bloc-3-seats · 07b_c5_b36_herb-council-pr-3-seats · 08_c6_b29_quota-circus-pr-2-seats · 09_c7_b44_park-bloc-4-seats