STAR just has one runoff, between the top two candidates; the original scores are used to narrow down to those two, and then the runoff just compares everyone's

STAR just has one runoff, between the top two candidates; the original scores are used to narrow down to those two, and then the runoff just compares everyone's preferences between them (single vote for one or the other, or neither if you scored them the same). It's a protection against some scenarios where more people prefer the second-highest-scoring candidate, which I believe can result from strategic voting by a minority block. More importantly, score voting is the best family of voting systems that currently exists (both STAR and vanilla score voting blow plurality and any form of ranked choice out of the water); STAR has only been around for a few years and has some real momentum in Oregon, whereas score has been around for roughly two decades[0] and has not made any headway that I know of. [0]: https://www.rangevoting.org/AboutUs.html https://www.rangevoting.org/AboutUs.html