Hi. good time. currently, I am running deep learning codes in R using reticulate and keras and tensorflow packages. I have got an error about tensorflow package. my python version is 3.11.4 . would it be possible to help me in solving my error ? thanks a lot

Error: Valid installation of TensorFlow not found. Python environments searched for 'tensorflow' package: C:\Users\Sony\Documents\.virtualenvs\r-reticulate\Scripts\python.exe Python exception encountered: Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Users\Sony\AppData\Local\R\win-library\4.3\reticulate\python\rpytools\loader.py", line 122, in _find_and_load_hook return _run_hook(name, _hook) File "C:\Users\Sony\AppData\Local\R\win-library\4.3\reticulate\python\rpytools\loader.py", line 96, in _run_hook module = hook() File "C:\Users\Sony\AppData\Local\R\win-library\4.3\reticulate\python\rpytools\loader.py", line 120, in _hook return _find_and_load(name, import_) ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'tensorflow' You can install TensorFlow using the install_tensorflow() function.

Basic context: I am an aerospace engineering student with a 2.7 GPA and one year left and I am feeling very hopeless. I plan to take a masters abroad (Europe or japan) as my country has no aerospace manufacturing and minimal education resources and getting a job abroad straight up doesn't seem very likely.
My first concern is my GPA. At one point it was as low as 1.74 (had a lot of personal issues) and it pushed me back a year. I was able to raise it to 2.7 now and I should be able to hit 2.8-2.85 as I graduate. I keep seeing that most masters courses require at least 2.8 or 3.0, which makes my situation seem hopeless.
My other issue is the lack of internships/education opportunities because there is no aero production where I live. I have taken 2 courses in engine and airframe maintenance in the largest airline here but I ma not sure how relevant and helpful that would be for a masters application.
Another issue I have is the lack of uni activity like student clubs or such. For most of our subjects we do projects from writing management software to stress analysis on materials in solidworks, but I am not sure if these count as they were basic coursework for my subjects. I was also busy trying to salvage my GPA.
I of course have knowledge of Matlab and solidworks and Python and I am learning German, but that doesn't feel like much in comparison to what I see many do.
I am hoping for any recommendations for what I should do in my remaining year.
Is there anything I should do in my remaining year like online resources/courses, and should I start trying my luck in applications?

I like having visibility into my dependencies. (That's how I ended up maintaining so many cargo plugins).
The other day I found myself wondering how much code there is in the rustls openssl compatibility layer, inluding all dependencies, to compare it against the notoriously enormous OpenSSL. But I couldn't find a tool to do that! The closest thing is cargo dephell, but it has a bunch of annoying limitations. It also hasn't been updated in 3 years and has accumulated a lot of CVEs in its C dependencies (thanks for letting me know, Cargo plugin I maintain!) So I've built my own tool over the weekend.
Meet cargo loc! So far it's only 88 lines of actual code (not counting dependencies), but it is already more accurate than cargo dephell!

Sample output

This is cargo loc analyzing itself:

Top 20 largest depdendencies: 504205 lines (133025 code): encoding_rs v0.8.34 384808 lines (384747 code): windows-sys v0.52.0 180430 lines (177051 code): winapi v0.3.9 121145 lines (109166 code): libc v0.2.154 54867 lines (51333 code): syn v2.0.63 52523 lines (49170 code): regex-syntax v0.8.3 40453 lines (29483 code): regex-automata v0.4.6 25319 lines (19553 code): rayon v1.10.0 24113 lines (22640 code): pest v2.7.10 23105 lines (18998 code): chrono v0.4.38 20150 lines (16943 code): serde_json v1.0.117 19282 lines (10602 code): wasm-bindgen v0.2.92 17237 lines (10962 code): regex v1.10.4 17095 lines (12062 code): clap v2.34.0 16593 lines (13567 code): crossbeam-channel v0.5.12 16379 lines (13118 code): chrono-tz v0.8.6 15108 lines (11379 code): aho-corasick v1.1.3 14221 lines (11915 code): tera v1.19.1 13421 lines (9231 code): libm v0.2.8 12701 lines (10742 code): serde v1.0.201 Breakdown of the total lines by language: Rust: 1436510 Plain Text: 369964 Markdown: 35129 TOML: 19082 C: 8803 HTML: 4028 JavaScript: 2790 Python: 2759 JSON: 1432 Makefile: 1361 C Header: 1153 F*: 830 Pest: 735 YAML: 238 Shell: 186 BASH: 183 ReStructuredText: 179 C++: 67 Dockerfile: 9 Pan: 3 Total lines: 1885441 (1355598 code, 444701 comments, 85142 blank lines) 

Spooky!

The big question is: does anyone care?

Now that I've satisfied my curiosity, I have to face the fact that this is the 5th Cargo plugin I would be maintaining, if I were to continue its development. And I should probably be working on existing plugins rather than starting all-new ones at this point.
The tool should keep being usable as is without further development. But there is also clearly room for improvement! You can find a list of what works and what doesn't in the README.
If you'd like to make the tool more sophisticated, I'd be happy to hand it over, or accept pull requests. And if nobody wants to do that, then the tool will stay the way it is - but that's probably fine?
Either way, please let me know if you've found the results useful, surprising or anything else! I'd love to hear if it had any value for you, at least. Cheers!

Im trying to create a online coding exam software using React app.I I have a language selector in my webpage with a code editor. When a user selects certain language from language selector,then then he have to write a code for a given question using that language. Now a problem is that,i I want to execute the user's Python code with my own testcases using pyodide.But But when iI run it in browser,it it says Line 123:33: 'loadPyodide' is not defined no-undef.

import React, { useState, useRef, useEffect } from 'react'; import Editor from '@monaco-editoreact'; import { Box, HStack, Button, Text } from '@chakra-ui/react'; import LanguageSelector from './LanguageSelector'; import { CODE_SNIPPETS } from '../constants'; import Output from './Output'; import questions from './questions.json'; const CodeEditor = () => { const [value, setValue] = useState(''); const [language, setLanguage] = useState('javascript'); const [outputValue, setOutputValue] = useState(''); const [currentQuestionIndex, setCurrentQuestionIndex] = useState(0); const [test, setTest] = useState(''); // Define test state to store the test of the current question const [functions , setFunctions] = useState(''); //For storing the function associated with the question const marks = useRef(0) const editorRef = useRef(null); const randomQuestions = useRef([]); var totalquestion ; var marks_of_each_question = 2; const getRandomQuestions = () => { const tempRandomQuestions = []; while (tempRandomQuestions.length < 5) { const randomIndex = Math.floor(Math.random() * questions.questions.length); const randomQuestion = questions.questions[randomIndex]; if (!tempRandomQuestions.find((q) => q.question === randomQuestion.question)) { tempRandomQuestions.push(randomQuestion); } } console.log(tempRandomQuestions) totalquestion = tempRandomQuestions; setTest(tempRandomQuestions[0].test); setFunctions(tempRandomQuestions[0].functions); return tempRandomQuestions; }; useEffect(() => { randomQuestions.current = getRandomQuestions(); setCurrentQuestionIndex(1); }, []); useEffect(() => { // Reset editor and output value when question changes setValue(CODE_SNIPPETS[language]); }, [currentQuestionIndex ,language]); const fetchQuestion = () => { setCurrentQuestionIndex((prevIndex) => { setTest(randomQuestions.current[prevIndex + 1].test); // Bfor updating the CurrentQuestionIndex,Update test with the new question setFunctions(randomQuestions.current[prevIndex + 1].functions); return prevIndex + 1; }); }; const onMount = (editor) => { editorRef.current = editor; editor.focus(); setCurrentQuestionIndex(0); }; const onSelect = (language) => { setLanguage(language); setValue(CODE_SNIPPETS[language]); }; const logOutputValue = (output) => { setOutputValue(output); }; const validateFunction =async (ICode , testCases , func) => { let functionRegex,findLargest; // ####FOR PYTHON##################### if (language === 'python') { const pyodide = await loadPyodide() let functionRegex, findLargest; functionRegex = new RegExp(`def\\s+${func}\\((.*?)\\)\\s*:\\s*([\\s\\S]*?)(?=(?:\\ndef\\s+\\Z))`); const match = ICode.match(functionRegex); // Check if the function definition was found if (!match) { throw new Error("Function not found"); } const [, parameters, body] = match; const pythonCode = ` def ${func}(${parameters}): ${body} `; // Execute the Python code to define the function window.pyodide.runPython(pythonCode); // Retrieve the function from the Python environment findLargest = window.pyodide.globals.get(func); // Log the created function console.log(findLargest); } return true; // Function passed all test cases }; const handleSubmit = () => { // try{ ##########Make try catch block at last const currentQuestion = randomQuestions.current[currentQuestionIndex]; console.log(currentQuestionIndex) console.log("currentQuestion.answer:", currentQuestion.answer); console.log("currentQuestion.test:", currentQuestion.test); console.log("currentQuestion.functions:", currentQuestion.functions); console.log("Output value:", outputValue); console.log("Language:", language); validateFunction(value,currentQuestion.test,currentQuestion.functions) if (currentQuestionIndex < randomQuestions.current.length - 1) { fetchQuestion(); } else if (currentQuestionIndex === randomQuestions.current.length - 1) { window.location.href = "/Completed"; alert("Congratulation! You got " + marks.current ) } // } // catch(error){ // console.log("Error") // console.log(error.message) // } }; return (      {currentQuestionIndex < randomQuestions.current.length ? randomQuestions.current[currentQuestionIndex].question : 'End'}   setValue(value)} onMount={onMount} />  Submit   
   ); }; export default CodeEditor; 

Here is the code import React, { useState, useRef, useEffect } from 'react'; import Editor from '@monaco-editoreact'; import { Box, HStack, Button, Text } from '@chakra-ui/react'; import LanguageSelector from './LanguageSelector'; import { CODE_SNIPPETS } from '../constants'; import Output from './Output'; import questions from './questions.json';
const CodeEditor = () => { const [value, setValue] = useState(''); const [language, setLanguage] = useState('javascript'); const [outputValue, setOutputValue] = useState(''); const [currentQuestionIndex, setCurrentQuestionIndex] = useState(0); const [test, setTest] = useState(''); // Define test state to store the test of the current question const [functions , setFunctions] = useState(''); //For storing the function associated with the question
const marks = useRef(0)
const editorRef = useRef(null); const randomQuestions = useRef([]); var totalquestion ; var marks_of_each_question = 2;
const getRandomQuestions = () => { const tempRandomQuestions = []; while (tempRandomQuestions.length < 5) { const randomIndex = Math.floor(Math.random() * questions.questions.length); const randomQuestion = questions.questions[randomIndex]; if (!tempRandomQuestions.find((q) => q.question === randomQuestion.question)) { tempRandomQuestions.push(randomQuestion); } } console.log(tempRandomQuestions) totalquestion = tempRandomQuestions; setTest(tempRandomQuestions[0].test); setFunctions(tempRandomQuestions[0].functions); return tempRandomQuestions; };
useEffect(() => { randomQuestions.current = getRandomQuestions(); setCurrentQuestionIndex(1); }, []);
useEffect(() => { // Reset editor and output value when question changes setValue(CODE_SNIPPETS[language]);
}, [currentQuestionIndex ,language]);
const fetchQuestion = () => { setCurrentQuestionIndex((prevIndex) => { setTest(randomQuestions.current[prevIndex + 1].test); // Bfor updating the CurrentQuestionIndex,Update test with the new question setFunctions(randomQuestions.current[prevIndex + 1].functions); return prevIndex + 1; }); };
const onMount = (editor) => { editorRef.current = editor; editor.focus(); setCurrentQuestionIndex(0); };
const onSelect = (language) => { setLanguage(language); setValue(CODE_SNIPPETS[language]); };
const logOutputValue = (output) => { setOutputValue(output); };
const validateFunction =async (ICode , testCases , func) => {
let functionRegex,findLargest;
// ####FOR PYTHON##################### if (language === 'python') {
const pyodide = await loadPyodide() let functionRegex, findLargest;
functionRegex = new RegExp(`def\\s+${func}\\((.*?)\\)\\s*:\\s*([\\s\\S]*?)(?=(?:\\ndef\\s+\\Z))`);
const match = ICode.match(functionRegex);
// Check if the function definition was found if (!match) { throw new Error("Function not found"); }
const [, parameters, body] = match;
const pythonCode = ` def ${func}(${parameters}): ${body} `;
// Execute the Python code to define the function window.pyodide.runPython(pythonCode);
// Retrieve the function from the Python environment findLargest = window.pyodide.globals.get(func);
// Log the created function console.log(findLargest);
}
return true; // Function passed all test cases };
const handleSubmit = () => { // try{ ##########Make try catch block at last const currentQuestion = randomQuestions.current[currentQuestionIndex]; console.log(currentQuestionIndex) console.log("currentQuestion.answer:", currentQuestion.answer); console.log("currentQuestion.test:", currentQuestion.test); console.log("currentQuestion.functions:", currentQuestion.functions); console.log("Output value:", outputValue); console.log("Language:", language);
validateFunction(value,currentQuestion.test,currentQuestion.functions)
if (currentQuestionIndex < randomQuestions.current.length - 1) { fetchQuestion();
} else if (currentQuestionIndex === randomQuestions.current.length - 1) { window.location.href = "/Completed"; alert("Congratulation! You got " + marks.current ) } // } // catch(error){ // console.log("Error") // console.log(error.message) // } };
return ( {currentQuestionIndex < randomQuestions.current.length ? randomQuestions.current[currentQuestionIndex].question : 'End'} setValue(value)} onMount={onMount} /> Submit

); };
export default CodeEditor;

I touched the smoothe scales of a reticulated python. My fingers were moisturized by the gelatinous protection of nature.

• S. Mul Frank

He's a male reticulated tiger python. He's super friendly and has a fun personality

Aisling’s consolidation vote reached the dizzying heights of 91% on Tuesday, the highest since early last year. Though it fell back to 89% by end of cycle haulers were able to complete the entire list of fortification objectives. Some new arrivals to the ADC discord on Wednesday were frustrated at the lack of objectives.
Granny Torval had the only expansion bid, to Bero. This was comfortably defeated but had served the purpose of blocking Winters in the same system last week. Undermining resumed against Uncle Yuri, but only in Pethes.
Pranav Antal’s less enlightened foes, whoever they are, undermined Sukree. The wider community has mostly been testing the new Python Mk II and the full range of SCO Frame Shift Drives made available this week.
The new cycle will be less relaxed as Felicia Winters launches a nasty -100CC weapon against us in Buan Zha. This will be our main combat priority as we wish Granny luck in her counter-weapon expansion to Jinoharis.
In BGS, Taiocamu continues to slip in and out of war. We also supported Explorers of the Anarchy to a victory in Gerong. We were narrowly beaten over 7 days supporting our Imperial allies against the Ice Storm Squadron in Kivah.
The Princess thanks you for your ongoing support. She hopes, as we do, that someone from FDev can respond to important questions concerning Powerplay 2.0 our lead coordinator has posted on the forums. Have fun out there.
Objectives for Cycle 468 (until May 16th)

• Vote for Consolidation! Voting is the most important thing you can do for AD, so make sure to maintain rank 2! It only takes 100 merits and four weeks of pledge time. Here's where to vote in the UI. Early votes are the best kind of votes!
• Check the Trello for dynamic fortification targets! This is updated more frequently than the in-game menu. Please, ONLY fortify systems listed on the Trello.
• Please do not prepare any systems this week. Spare media materials can be safely delivered to HIP 35209.
• Combat merits: oppose Felicia Winters’ expansion to Buan Zha.
• AX: Imperial Xeno Defence primary target this cycle is still to prepare the assault on Titan Hadad by hitting the spire site Col 285 sector US-Z b14-7, body 12c.
• Join the Discord for guides, mentoring, BGS, PVP and insight. Powerplay is a community game, so connect with us.
• Aisling Duval powerplay is committed to the ZYADA alliance: Zemina Torval, Yuri Grom, Arissa Lavigny-Duval, Denton Patreus, Aisling Duval.

I graduated! Congrats to everyone else who finished this term too.
This program has been really fun and rewarding for me and I'm almost (but not quite) sad to be done. Some ways I learned/grew:

• I got more comfortable reading research papers.
• I gained a lot of confidence in my ability to understand math.
• I learned a lot about ML, and got comfortable with relevant python libraries.
• I learned LaTeX math syntax, which is pretty handy.
• I got excited about several topics that weren't previously on my radar.

Advice (fwiw, I got straight A's):

• Take it slow if you can.
• If you're nervous about the math needed for ML courses like I was, start spending a few minutes each day to learn or review differential calculus, linear algebra, and prob/stat. A little goes a long way; you mostly only need pretty basic stuff.
• In some classes, it's important to watch the office hours videos even if you have no questions about the material. In ML, some of the requirements for the assignments were only really communicated during office hours.
• Read all the official course communications closely. You don't want to be the student who loses a bunch of points for a mistake that a TA had already clearly warned about in an Ed post. GA in particular requires you to strictly adhere to specific definitions and assumptions which are primarily communicated in Ed posts.
• If you take Compilers, do the project in Java. It's enough work already without worrying about memory management too. (Admittedly, I'm biased since I have way more experience in Java than C/C++.)
• If possible, take PTO from work to give yourself extra breathing room near difficult tests / due dates.
• Watch Bee and Puppycat on Netflix. This is unrelated, it's just a good show.

Notes on the courses I took:

• CN (fall 2020): Learning more about the history of the Internet and reading foundational papers was fun. And it was good to learn a little about how routing works. This was a fairly gentle introduction to OMSCS (I had enough spare time, combined with freshman over-exuberance, to partially replicate one of the papers covered), but I wouldn't call it a blow-off course either.
• GIOS (spring 2021): I think I had done enough low-level(ish) programming throughout my life that nothing in this course felt like a major revelation. But it went into detail on some topics I hadn't paid attention to before, like schedulers; and it forced me to at least temporarily have a very clear conception of how various synchronization mechanisms work. The workload was higher than CN but not too bad, although it would have really sucked to be learning C/C++ for the first time during this class.
• Software Analysis (summer 2021): This was a surprising combination of being really interesting and really easy (it felt like the lowest workload of all the courses I took). It was fascinating to learn how many different problems can be solved by slight variations on the same basic fixed-point algorithm. And "statistical debugging" was a cool concept.
• Compilers (fall 2021): It was a lot of fun to have an excuse to implement a compiler. Learning about how regexes and nondeterministic finite automata are connected was cool too. This had by far the largest / most complex coding project of any class I took; make sure you're very comfortable with the programming language you plan to use before signing up.
• ML (spring 2022): This class was the most stressful thing I had experienced in years, but the way it was structured really helped me get out of my comfort zone and feel like I might be capable of engaging with the field on more than a superficial level.
• RL (summer 2022): This class had my favorite projects, even though I wasn't really successful at any of them. It also had one of my favorite textbooks of the program. The accumulated stress from ML and RL really got to me though and I needed a semester off after this.
• DL (spring 2023): I don't remember many specific things about this class but I think it was generally pretty helpful in getting me comfortable with pytorch and deep learning. I found it significantly easier than ML and RL because the work was less open-ended, except for the final project.
• NS (summer 2023): This was another class with a memorable textbook. I'm a bit of a videophobe so I also appreciated that most of the "lectures" were provided in written form instead of recordings. The core idea—that many real-world networks are scale-free and that this has implications which apply across a number of domains—is the sort of thing that makes you go "whoaaaaa". Despite some annoying ambiguities in some of the coursework, I found it generally pretty easy and pretty interesting.
• NLP (fall 2023): The quizzes and programming assignments (excluding the mini-project) were so easy that I didn't really need to understand the material for them. The tests were what forced me to actually learn, and I appreciated the format of them (even if they were a ton of work). It felt like there was a decent amount of overlap between DL and this class (which makes sense) but I think this class did a better job of explaining how transformers work.
• GA (spring 2024): Prior to this, I had only a vague notion of P vs NP, so I found that section of the course super fascinating. Solving dynamic programming, divide-and-conquer, and graph problems was already within my comfort zone, but I did learn some things in all those areas—perhaps most memorably the "master theorem" for analyzing divide-and-conquer runtimes, and the fast multiplication algorithm. I liked how much substantive interaction there was on Ed among students and TAs. I stressed out a lot about how to word my solutions, and the high-stakes 2.5-hour exams were nerve-racking.

Hey RStudio crew. I'm building a shiny app that calls on a few python functions. One of these functions uses PyVISA to interact with a device (specifically a B&K Precision power supply). In python the function works with no issues, updating the voltage and current output with ease. But when I use reticulate in the shiny app to call on that function, it will run with no errors but not update the output.
So to work around the issue, I'm looking for a package in R that does what PyVISA can do, this way it can run natively in R and I can guarantee no issues (plus better error outputting and whatnot since it will be native). Please let me know if you have any suggestions, at a bit of a loss here since there is a visa package in R...for hyperspectal data analysis, lol. Completely unrelated.

banner
Welcome back to the Reformed UPG of the Week!
Gonna leave this here because reddit is still a massive pain these days

Slight update, the new reddit UI has made it almost impossible for me to quickly do these, like I used to be able to do. Thus, theres a chance it becomes UPG of the every other week until the problem is fixed. I can't spend every one of my entire Monday mornings working on this for hours with stupid formatting issues.

Last week I was reminded just how many Unreached People Groups there are in America. So today we are doing the largest unreached people group in the US, Jewish peoples of America.

Region: United States

map of Jewish peoples in the United States
Stratus Index Ranking (Urgency): 34
It has been noted to me by u/JCmathetes that I should explain this ranking. Low numbers are more urgent, both physically and spiritually together, while high numbers are less urgent. The scale is 1-177, with one number assigned to each country. So basically on a scale from Afghanistan (1) to Finland (177), how urgent are the peoples physical and spiritual needs.

The Stratus Index - Synthesizes reliable data from different sources to clearly display the world’s most urgent spiritual and physical needs.The vast majority of missions resources go to people and places already Reached by the Gospel, while only 3% of missionaries and 1% of missions money are deployed among the Unreached. This is the Great Imbalance. As a result, there are more people without access to the Gospel today than a decade ago. Stratus seeks to equip the global church with fresh vision to accomplish the Great Commission by addressing some of the factors that perpetuate the Great Imbalance. We hope this tool allows the church to better understand what steps will be required to overcome the barriers that prevent needs from being met, spurring informed and collaborative missions strategy. Stratus Website

New York City
Climate: With its large size and geographic variety, the United States includes most climate types. To the east of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south.
Frozen Great Lakes
LA, California
Terrain: Measured by only land area, the United States is third in size behind Russia and China, and just ahead of Canada. So its hard to get a bead on all the types of Terrain. The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way further inland to deciduous forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont. The Appalachian Mountains and the Adirondack massif divide the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The Mississippi–Missouri River, the world's fourth longest river system, runs mainly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, peaking at over 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado. Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and deserts such as the Chihuahua, Sonoran, and Mojave. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast, both ranges also reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m). The lowest and highest points in the contiguous United States are in the state of California, and only about 84 miles (135 km) apart. At an elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m), Alaska's Denali is the highest peak in the country and in North America.
30A in Florida
Denver, CO
Mississippi River
Wildlife of US: There are 311 known reptiles, 295 amphibians and 1154 known fish species in the U.S. Known animals that exist in the US include white-tailed deer, bobcat, raccoon, muskrat, striped skunk, barn owl, American mink, American beaver, North American river otter, red fox, American Black Bear, Hawaiian Monk Seal, Black-Footed Ferret, Gila Monster, Groundhog, Pronghorn, American Alligator, Crocodile, American Bison, bald Eagle, wolves, mountain lions, Grizzly bears, polar bears, lynx, muskox, caribou, and now I'm tired of searching for lists that include all the animals. We have tons of venomous snakes, we have invasive pythons in the everglades.
Unfortunately, there is an invasive but existing population of wild monkeys in Silver Springs Florida.
Bison in Yellowstone
Pigeons in New York
Environmental Issues: Environmental issues in the United States include climate change, Ohio, species conservation, invasive species, deforestation, mining, nuclear accidents, pesticides, pollution, waste and over-population.
Languages: While many languages are spoken in the United States, English is the most common. Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws—such as U.S. naturalization requirements—standardize English, and most states have declared English as the official language. Three states and four U.S. territories have recognized local or indigenous languages in addition to English, including Hawaii (Hawaiian), Alaska (twenty Native languages), South Dakota (Sioux), American Samoa (Samoan), Puerto Rico (Spanish), Guam (Chamorro), and the Northern Mariana Islands (Carolinian and Chamorro). In Puerto Rico, Spanish is more widely spoken than English. According to the American Community Survey, in 2010 some 229 million people (out of the total U.S. population of 308 million) spoke only English at home. More than 37 million spoke Spanish at home, making it the second most commonly used language. Other languages spoken at home by one million people or more include Chinese (2.8 million), Tagalog (1.6 million), Vietnamese (1.4 million), French (1.3 million), Korean (1.1 million), and German (1 million). The Jewish Peoples of America speak English.
Government Type: Federal presidential constitutional republic

People: Jewish Peoples of America

Jewish man of America
Population: 4,596,000
Estimated Foreign Workers Needed: 92+
Beliefs: The Jewish peoples of America are 2.7% Christian, but only 1.6% Evangelical. That means out of their population of 4,596,000, there are roughly 73,000 believers who share their faith. That slightly more than 1 believer for every 100.
Like all those who deny Christ, the Jewish peoples are deceived and follow a false god. For religious Jewish peoples, God (not the true God at this point) is the Supreme Being, the Creator of the universe, and the ultimate Judge of human affairs. Beyond this, the religious beliefs of the Jewish communities vary greatly. Orthodox Jewish peoples generally follow the traditional religious beliefs and practices found in the Jewish literature that interprets Scripture regarding ethical, religious, civil and criminal matters. Conservative Judaism is less traditional than Orthodox and combines different ethical, philosophical, and spiritual schools of thought. Reform Judaism is the most liberal form and interprets Jewish beliefs and practices in light of contemporary life and thought. Reform Jewish peoples do not believe that the Jewish Law is divinely revealed. They are not restricted to kosher (traditional, approved) foods, nor do they wear the skull cap (yarmulke) when praying or use Hebrew in prayer. All religious Jewish peoples believe in the coming of a Messianic Age, but only the Orthodox Jewish peoples look for a personal Messiah.
Not all Jewish peoples are religious. Some understand their "Jewishness" only as a social and cultural identity. American Jewish peoples are more likely to be atheists or agnostics than most Americans.
The Wilshire Boulevard Temple, known from 1862 to 1933 as Congregation B'nai B'rith, is a Reform Jewish congregation and synagogue, located at 3663 Wilshire Boulevard, in the Wilshire Center district of Los Angeles, California, in the United States. Founded in 1862, it is the oldest Jewish congregation in Los Angeles.
History: Jewish peoples were present in the Thirteen Colonies since the mid-17th century. However, they were small in number, with at most 200 to 300 having arrived by 1700. Those early arrivals were mostly Sephardi Jewish immigrants, of Western Sephardic (also known as Spanish and Portuguese Jewish) ancestry, but by 1720, Ashkenazi Jewish peoples from diaspora communities in Central and Eastern Europe predominated.
For the first time, the English Plantation Act 1740 permitted Jewish peoples to become British citizens and emigrate to the colonies. The first famous Jewish person in U.S. history was Chaim Salomon, a Polish-born Jewish person who emigrated to New York and played an important role in the American Revolution. He was a successful financier who supported the patriotic cause and helped raise most of the money needed to finance the American Revolution.
Despite the fact that some of them were denied the right to vote or hold office in local jurisdictions, Sephardi Jewish peoples became active in community affairs in the 1790s, after they were granted political equality in the five states where they were most numerous. Until about 1830, Charleston, South Carolina had more Jewish peoples than anywhere else in North America. Large-scale Jewish immigration commenced in the 19th century, when, by mid-century, many German Jewish peoples had arrived, migrating to the United States in large numbers due to antisemitic laws and restrictions in their countries of birth. They primarily became merchants and shop-owners. Gradually early Jewish arrivals from the east coast would travel westward, and in the fall of 1819 the first Jewish religious services west of the Appalachian Range were conducted during the High Holidays in Cincinnati, the oldest Jewish community in the Midwest. Gradually the Cincinnati Jewish community would adopt novel practices under the leadership Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise, the father of Reform Judaism in the United States, such as the inclusion of women in minyan. A large community grew in the region with the arrival of German and Lithuanian Jewish peoples in the latter half of the 1800s, leading to the establishment of Manischewitz, one of the largest producers of American kosher products and now based in New Jersey, and the oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper in the United States, and second-oldest continuous published in the world, The American Israelite, established in 1854 and still extant in Cincinnati. By 1880 there were approximately 250,000 Jewish peoples in the United States, many of them being the educated, and largely secular, German Jews, although a minority population of the older Sephardi Jewish families remained influential.
Jewish migration to the United States increased dramatically in the early 1880s, as a result of persecution and economic difficulties in parts of Eastern Europe. Most of these new immigrants were Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jewish peoples, most of whom arrived from poor diaspora communities of the Russian Empire and the Pale of Settlement, located in modern-day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova. During the same period, great numbers of Ashkenazic Jewish peoples also arrived from Galicia, at that time the most impoverished region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with a heavy Jewish urban population, driven out mainly by economic reasons. Many Jewish peoples also emigrated from Romania. Over 2,000,000 Jewish peoples landed between the late 19th century and 1924 when the Immigration Act of 1924 restricted immigration. Most settled in the New York metropolitan area, establishing the world's major concentrations of the Jewish population. In 1915, the circulation of the daily Yiddish newspapers was half a million in New York City alone, and 600,000 nationally. In addition, thousands more subscribed to the numerous weekly papers and the many magazines in Yiddish.
At the beginning of the 20th century, these newly arrived Jewish peoples built support networks consisting of many small synagogues and Landsmanshaften (German and Yiddish for "Countryman Associations") for Jewish peoples from the same town or village. American Jewish writers of the time urged assimilation and integration into the wider American culture, and Jews quickly became part of American life. Approximately 500,000 American Jewish peoples (or half of all Jewish males between 18 and 50) fought in World War II, and after the war younger families joined the new trend of suburbanization. There, Jewish peoples became increasingly assimilated and demonstrated rising intermarriage. The suburbs facilitated the formation of new centers, as Jewish school enrollment more than doubled between the end of World War II and the mid-1950s, while synagogue affiliation jumped from 20% in 1930 to 60% in 1960; the fastest growth came in Reform and, especially, Conservative congregations. More recent waves of Jewish emigration from Russia and other regions have largely joined the mainstream American Jewish community.
Eastern European Jewish immigrants arriving in New York ca 1887?
Culture: Typical qualification that all people groups can't be summed up in small paragraphs and this is an over generalization.
In North America, most Jewish peoples live in urban areas on the east or west coasts. New York City has the largest Jewish population in North America, with over a half million Hassidic Jewish peoples alone. In South America, they also live in cities, but keep themselves as a distinct religious and ethnic minority.
While maintaining a Jewish identity, the majority of North American Jewish peoples conform to the mainstream American culture. "Jewishness" is often defined in more secular terms such as the use of Yiddish words and family traditions, rather than in religious aspects, such as the following of Jewish laws regarding dietary restrictions. Not all Jewish peoples are religious. Some understand their "Jewishness" only as a social and cultural identity. Understanding what it means to be a Jewish people begins in childhood. It takes place in the home through storytelling and by taking part in Jewish rituals and festivals such as Rosh Hashanah (New Year), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and Passover. Socialization also takes place through participation in Hebrew school or synagogue youth groups. At the age of 13, the Bar Mitzvah ceremony for a boy (or Bat Mitzvah for a girl) is an important rite of passage, which marks him or her as an adult member of the community. While these ceremonies were more spiritually focused in the past, they have become equally important as social events.
Marriage and family relationships among Jewish peoples are much the same as other Americans. While Jewish families have fewer children, they are child-oriented, indulgent, and permissive. Although wives generally take on their husbands' surnames, Jewish identity is traced through the mothers. That is, if one's mother is a Jewish people, then he is, according to Jewish law, Jewish. He or she is entitled to all the rights and privileges that status brings, including the right to immigrate to Israel and settle there as a citizen.
I couldn't not include a pic of the notable cultural event of the American Hasidic Jewish peoples who dug a tunnel in New York
Cuisine: Popular dishes in American Jewish cuisine include:

• Bagel – A doughnut-shaped bread roll. The dough is first boiled and then baked, resulting in a dense, chewy interior with a browned exterior: A bagel and cream cheese is a popular pairing.
• Bialy – A bread roll similar to a bagel, but without a hole, and somewhat less chewy as the dough is not boiled before being baked.
• Blintz – A fried crêpe, usually filled with farmer cheese and served with various toppings.
• Brisket – An inexpensive cut of beef that is braised as a pot roast.
• Challah – A light bread made with eggs, used as regular food, and on ritual or holiday occasions.
• Chicken soup – Chicken broth with herbs like parsley, dill, or thyme, and often with egg noodles added.
  • Matzah balls are sometimes added to the soup instead of, or in addition to, noodles.
  • Kreplach are small dumplings that are another common addition to chicken soup.
• Chopped liver – A liver pâté made with hard-boiled eggs, salt, and pepper. Served as a side dish, hence the expression, "What am I, chopped liver?"
• Corned beef – Beef brisket that has been cured with brine and spices and then sliced.
  • Corned beef sandwich – A common use of corned beef.
• Gefilte fish – Ground fish – often a combination of carp, pike, and whitefish – that is mixed with other ingredients, formed into patties or balls, and poached; usually served as an appetizer.
• Kishke – A large, starchy sausage made with grain, vegetables, beef or chicken fat, and spices.
• Knish – A type of savory baked turnover; various fillings are used, such as potatoes or ground beef.
• Kugel – A baked casserole made with egg noodles or potatoes.
• Latke – A pancake made with grated potatoes and other ingredients, fried in oil.
• Lox – A sliced fillet of cured salmon. Belly lox is cured with brine and is therefore rather salty. Nova lox is cold-smoked. Lox is often eaten as a sandwich, on a bagel with cream cheese.
• Mandelbrot – A crunchy cookie, sometimes made with almonds, formed by baking a loaf which is then cut into small slabs and twice-baked.
• Pastrami – Beef brisket that has been cured with brine, rubbed with pepper, garlic, and other spices, smoked, and then sliced. Like corned beef it is usually served as a sandwich.
  • Pastrami on rye – Pastrami on rye bread topped with spicy brown mustard.
• Rugelach – Small baked pastries made by wrapping dough around a filling.
• Whitefish – Smoked freshwater whitefish, either filleted or made into whitefish salad.

New York Bagels

Prayer Request:

• Ask the Lord of the harvest to send forth loving Christians to work among the Jewish communities.
• Ask the Holy Spirit to grant wisdom and favor to the missions agencies that are focusing on the Jewish peoples of North and South America.
• Pray that the Jewish people will understand that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah.
• Ask the Lord to soften the hearts of the Jewish peoples towards Christians so that they might hear and receive the message of salvation.
• Pray that God will grant Jewish believers favor as they share their faith in Christ with their own people.
• Pray that strong local churches will be raised up in each Jewish community.
• Pray against Putin and his insane little war.
• Pray for our nation (the United States), that we Christians can learn to come alongside our hurting brothers and sisters and learn to carry one another's burdens in a more Christlike manner than we have done historically.
• Pray that in this time of an upcoming election and insanity that the needs of the unreached are not forgotten by the church. Pray that our hearts continue to ache to see the unreached hear the Good News.

Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. (Romans 10:1)
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Here are the previous weeks threads on the UPG of the Week for Reformed from 2023 (plus a few from 2022 so this one post isn't so lonely). To save some space on these, all UPG posts made 2019-now are here, I will try to keep this current.

People Group	Country	Continent	Date Posted	Beliefs
Jewish peoples	United States	North America	05/06/2024	Judaism
Jordanian Arab	Jordan	Asia	04/29/2024	Islam
Bouyei	China	Asia	04/22/2024	Animism
Arab Libyans	Libya	Africa	03/25/2024	Islam
Gafsa Amazigh	Tunisia	Africa	03/18/2024	Islam
Hindi	South Africa	Africa	03/04/2024	Hinduism
Arabs	Iraq	Asia	02/26/2024	Islam
Bagirmi Fulani	Central African Republic	Africa	02/12/2024	Islam
Gujarati	Portugal	Europe	02/05/2024	Hinduism
Western Cham	Cambodia	Asia	01/29/2024	Islamc
Yadav	India	Asia	01/22/2024	Hinduism
Thai (updated)	Thailand	Asia	12/18/2023	Buddhism

a - Tibet belongs to Tibet, not China.
b - Russia/Turkey/etc is Europe but also Asia so...
c - this likely is not the true religion that they worship, but rather they have a mixture of what is listed with other local religions, or they have embraced a liberal drift and are leaving faith entirely but this is their historical faith.
Here is a list of definitions in case you wonder what exactly I mean by words like "Unreached".
Here is a list of missions organizations that reach out to the world to do missions for the Glory of God.

I'm a bit confused about an algorithm a student of mine provided. It was supposed to be a selection sort and it kind of shows in the code, and it looks like some variant of bubble sort, but the swaps are going the wrong way. It seems to work though and I would like to understand how, and why, it works.
Here's the Python code:

def mystery_sort(l): for i in range(len(l)): min = i for j in range(len(l)): if l[j] > l[min]: l[min], l[j] = l[j], l[min] return l 

At the bottom of the post, you'll find a sample run sorting an array of 5 numbers. You can see the array of numbers and the indices i and j with dashes between them if there's a swap. The algorithm seems to work in such a way that at outer iteration n, the largest element ends up at position n, which results in the largest number ending up at the end of the array. What I would like to understand, though, is why do all the other elements seem to end up in the right place? I've tried this 1000 runs of 1000 random numbers, and I'm confused. Please send help. Thanks!

[59, 63, 15, 43, 75] ij (no swap) [59, 63, 15, 43, 75] i----j (swap) [63, 59, 15, 43, 75] i j (no swap) [63, 59, 15, 43, 75] i j (no swap) [63, 59, 15, 43, 75] i----------------j (swap) [75, 59, 15, 43, 63] ==================== [75, 59, 15, 43, 63] j----i (swap) [59, 75, 15, 43, 63] ij (no swap) [59, 75, 15, 43, 63] i j (no swap) [59, 75, 15, 43, 63] i j (no swap) [59, 75, 15, 43, 63] i j (no swap) [59, 75, 15, 43, 63] ==================== [59, 75, 15, 43, 63] j--------i (swap) [15, 75, 59, 43, 63] j----i (swap) [15, 59, 75, 43, 63] ij (no swap) [15, 59, 75, 43, 63] i j (no swap) [15, 59, 75, 43, 63] i j (no swap) [15, 59, 75, 43, 63] ==================== [15, 59, 75, 43, 63] j i (no swap) [15, 59, 75, 43, 63] j--------i (swap) [15, 43, 75, 59, 63] j----i (swap) [15, 43, 59, 75, 63] ij (no swap) [15, 43, 59, 75, 63] i j (no swap) [15, 43, 59, 75, 63] ==================== [15, 43, 59, 75, 63] j i (no swap) [15, 43, 59, 75, 63] j i (no swap) [15, 43, 59, 75, 63] j i (no swap) [15, 43, 59, 75, 63] j----i (swap) [15, 43, 59, 63, 75] ij (no swap) [15, 43, 59, 63, 75] ==================== 

Pt. 1 Here
After five years, Milek thought she’d be used to this by now. Frozen stiff from fear, she watched the massive brown avian soar through the rafters in the arena.

After Arthur brought his King Charles Spaniel, Milek thought she had seen the worst the Human home world, a place called Earth, had to offer. The next year, his wife, Emily, showed up with something even more horrifying.

When that gigantic beast, easily five times larger than the previous one, lumbered into the arena, it caused a wave of fear so intense that a few species even broke out of their freeze instinct and ran. Ran! That’s the worst thing to do with a predator.

Yet the shaggy grey animal was just as well behaved as the one Arthur brought along. Of course, that is well behaved by Human standards. When Emily released a robotic version of a local animal called a deer, the arena was fascinated. Until the massive beast suddenly turn into the vicious predator everyone feared it was.

With a simple command from Emily, the gigantic predator immediately began chasing down the robotic deer. The bulky beast herded and maneuvered the robot until it took it down with a nip to the legs. Emily then gave a second command and the large animal immediately ceased the attack and reverted back to its, oddly, unassuming demeanor.

This was the first time that Milek got a good idea of how dominant the Humans were on their world. Screwing up her courage, she and Fessin went to introduce themselves just like they had with her husband the year prior.

She proved just as friendly, and oddly apologetic, as Arthur. This time, Milek and Fessin were invited to interact with the dog. Milek had a powerful conflict between curiosity and survival brewing at the time. Curiosity won out, barely, and she agreed to meet the predator.

The dog, the Irish Wolfhound, proved friendly and gentle. The animal had an unusually calm demeanor around potential prey. Yet she knew from the display that aggression could be triggered at any time. Emily explained that they have nothing to worry about, so long as they don’t threaten the dog’s family. Not that Emily had to worry about that in the galactic community.

That was also a controversial year. Like the year before, the judges decided to disregard the performance and awarded Fessin the first prize while Milek took second. Fessin was so outraged by the bias that he marched off the podium, dragged Emily over and handed the winning ribbon to her himself.

It would have also been the first year that a single entrant won both first AND second place with the same animal since Milek was ready to do the same. When the two most popular entrants in the IPGS rebelled, the judges listened and decided that a “technical error” in the voting software caused a mixup.

Still, even after learning that Earth’s predators could be impressive allies, Milek couldn’t shake millions of years of evolutionary instinct.

The avian, introduced by the trainer as a Golden Eagle, peered down over the crowd with eyes that looked like they could see for eternity. The trainer had set up a field of holographic grasses on the floor and let loose a robotic animal referred to as a hare.

The bird circled above, scanning the simulated grass below. Then a subtle shift in the grass gave away the presence of the robotic hare and the bird went into action.

Pulling in its wings, it dove down, picking up speed before flying low to the ground. The hare ran from the bird. Flapping to keep up its speed, the eagle skimmed the tips of the holographic grass as it rapidly closed the distance.

Then it extended its long black talons protruding from the ends of its bright yellow reptilian feet, stabbing them into the hare. The hare quickly ceased movement and the eagle ripped into the robot with a long, sharp beak, puncturing into the compartment that held the animal’s reward.

After consuming the meat, the bird flapped up into the air with a mighty pump of its wings before circling back toward the Human. The bird then landed on the Human’s outstretched arm, perching on a thick protective glove.

The Human gave a small bow, which the bird mimicked with outstretched wings. The Human was wearing an unusual garb made out of animal furs and skins. This was also disturbing to Milek, yet she held her opinion since it was the traditional cultural garb of a place on Earth called Mongolia, where training of these large predators dated back generations.

Milek ended up taking second this year behind the Human with Fessin in the third position. It was eight years since neither of them ended up on the top of the winner’s podium. Still, Milek wasn’t upset. The Humans bringing in fresh competition improved her game. Even though she placed second, she felt that her presentation was the best it has ever been.

The golden eagle deserved the win. Humanity had displayed a positively gargantuan avian predator for everyone to see. Milek later learned that, of course, it didn’t even rank in the top ten largest avian predators on Earth. The Humans have a penchant for surprises.

After the completion of the ceremony, Milek went to Fessin. “Hey, want to go check out the Garden displays? It’s been a while since we browsed it and I hear a Human finally opened a booth this year.”

“That sounds good,” Fessin replied. “Maybe their plants are just as unbelievable as their animals.”

Both shared a laugh at that. Surely, plant life couldn’t be hostile and deadly. It was food.

The pair moved through an airlock that led to a different part of the competition station.

Humans joining the IPGS caused a large number of rapid changes.

The biggest change was the venue was moved from rotating planet side arenas to a space station that the IPGS purchased second-hand from a failed concert promoter. They would tow it to the same planets and operate the show in orbit as opposed to on the ground.

The reason for this was two-fold. First, the number of spectators had quadrupled since the Irish Wolfhound showing. People wanted to get a better understanding of the fauna of Earth yet none of the species could survive the crushing gravity of the planet. The IPGS was the perfect place to observe the native wildlife of a planet that was otherwise impossible to visit. The problem was, the arenas the IPGS had on contract weren’t large enough for such crowds and it caused issues with ticket scalping.

Second was also related to the gravity. Because of the high gravity, many of the animals struggled to function properly in normal gravity environments. The two human entrants in the third year reported their animals were distressed when trying to move in the low gravity and it undermined the performance. One had brought along an animal called a horse and the gravity was interfering with the animal so badly that the human withdrew before the individual competition.

With a station, both problems were addressed. The station was able to handle the far larger crowds and it had it could dynamically alter the gravity of the competition floor. Of course, the gravity manipulator had to be special ordered since no one had designed one to generate that kind of force.

Without the proper gravity, the golden eagle wouldn’t have been able to display its terrifying hunting prowess.

A few other changes were made as well. A big one was the use of robotic animals. While Emily introduced the robotic deer, there weren’t any rules on the subject until the other Human in the third year created the new rule.

Milek thought that Human brought along a relatively normal animal to display. It was a creature called a rat. It was a small, dark grey-haired animal with a long, hairless tail. The Human also had carted out a large glass container behind it filled with rocks and artificial plants.

The crowd was intrigued by what the rat would do. The Human dropped it into the tank and all the rat did was wander around. Everyone found it disappointing.

That is until it caused the Mass Fainting. What Milek had initially thought was a large vine suddenly snapped out. The vine opened a mouth and began wrapping around the rat. The rat squealed loudly before it went silent. The vine tightened more and more as the rat struggled in silence before finally expiring.

Then the vine twisted around and consumed the rat by swallowing it whole. It turns out that it wasn’t a vine but a long animal the Humans referred to as a snake. In particular, a ball python.

Which, of course, is also not the largest of that particular class of animal on Earth, either.

The IPGS promptly banned harming live animals even before the judges had time to wake up.

The fourth year also had a new, Human derived rule. That year, a few entrants had shown up. By this point, the IPGS and its regulars had become somewhat used to the bizarre predators that the Humans were prone to entering.

That year, three Humans had arrived. One brought the most positively normal animal yet, a colorful avian called a parrot. It wasn’t, to Milek’s relief, a secret predator that would suck out blood from small cuts in the night. She couldn’t imagine such an animal ever existing, though she was sure some Human would bring one along at some point. No, the parrot only did something else bizarre - talking.

The second brought along a tiny predator known as a house cat. This was the first time Milek ever saw a predator that she wasn’t utterly terrified by upon first glance. It was, dare she say, cute. She loved the way it let out a low, comforting rumble. At least it was until the Human dangled a simulated mouse in front of it and a set of sharp claws deployed. The only solace was the fact the predator was so small it wouldn't be lethal to the galactic races.

It was the third Human that caused the rule change. And it was the Humans who suggested it to restrict entry to a list of animals that had to be excluded for safety. It was a long list and, oddly, even included herbivores like an animal called a hippopotamus. Milek also learned in that moment that if the Humans are concerned about something, listen.

The third Human brought along a much larger animal that Milek initially confused as a bigger house cat. The cat had a coat patterned with orange and black stripes with a few white accents along the face and underbelly. It was pulled along by a rope, like Arthur and Emily had done with their dogs, by a man with a weird blue coat in the same stripe pattern as the animal and had a hairstyle the archives called a “mullet”.

The other two Humans immediately alerted and informed the IPGS that the third Human, along with his animal, which they called a tiger, should be removed from the premises at once. Apparently, even Earth had predators the Humans couldn’t tame. The immense beast was one of them and it had a high probability of causing damage.

The Human with the tiger was eventually ejected, not without a significant amount of argument from the Human claiming he was some sort of tiger royalty.

After that was dealt with, Milek also got her first dose of unusual Human humor. When the tiger and its owner finally left, the Human with the parrot commented that tigers weren’t from some place called Africa. The other replied that it must be two humans in a suit. The two shared a laugh. Then the Human with the cat accused the human with the parrot that his parrot was deceased. Milek was confused why this was funny because the parrot was very clearly living.

Milek and Fessin stepped through the second airlock into a large atrium. Warm and humid, Milek flexed her outer chitin and enjoyed the warmth. It reminded her of her home world.

Looking on the tablet, Milek found the booth the Human had set up. “Looks like it’s at the other end of the venue.”

“I could use the exercise,” Fessin said. “Oh, by the way, I got a message from Arthur. He says if the Human offers up something called a pepper, turn it down. Apparently they think its funny when a new species tries one. Supposedly they cause significant distress both going in and coming out.”

“And the Humans eat this stuff?” Milek said, aghast.

Fessin snorted at the absurdity of it. “All the time. Voluntarily.”

Milek shook her head as she and Fessin browsed the garden show. The Garden hall was far bigger than the Pet Show arena. While most of the spectators came for the Pet Show, they stayed for the food.

Milek looked at the rows upon rows of different stations displaying the local plant life from across the galaxy. Her mouth watered as her eyes scanned over tasty looking vines or sumptuous purple flowers. Her 360 degree vision was nearly overloaded by the glorious bounty arrayed in the massive space.

Slapping her head, she remembered her mission. She was going to save her credits, and appetite, to get her first taste of Earth’s offerings. Luckily, the Humans were omnivores, so they enjoyed plants just as much as a good herbivore did.

Milek and Fessin both struggled as they moved through the Garden Show. Each new booth tempted them to try their food. Tubers, berries and nuts galore.

Then there was a strange break in the crowd. Looking ahead, Milek saw the Human’s booth. It was empty.

Moving closer, she saw a bored looking Human sitting on a metal folding chair. The small Human, a woman, was dressed in a brown robe with an embroidered garment covering her shoulders in the same color. Perched upon her head was a brown hat which had a round brim and had a cone jutting out of the top. The hat looked like it was one size too small for her head yet still managed to perch on the top.

Facing her tablet at the woman, Milek tried to get an idea of what the apparel was called. Nothing returned.
Curiously, the pair approached. Each table held, like many others, an array of amazingly appetizing plants. Vines, purple flowers, red flowers and more. There was also a section with strange plants that looked like water pitchers and one that had the weird appearance of having teeth. Milek noticed that the tables had little signs all over them. “For Display Only. Not for Consumption.”

The Human looked up and smiled, briefly flashing teeth before her mouth closed. “Welcome to Sprout’s Sprouts!”

Milek had a number of questions bouncing around in her mind. The first one popped out. “Can you tell me what your garment is called? I’m not getting anything from the database.”

The woman looked down at herself. “Oh? This thing? I can understand. It’s a pop culture reference I’m a fan of. Those haven’t been loaded up to the galactic network. It’s a big file. This is a robe and hat from a book series about a magical school I enjoy. The character a herbology teacher, which inspired me into becoming a horticulturalist.”

“Fiction is an important part of development,” Milek agreed. “So, why do you have all these signs everywhere?”

The Human gave a sheepish look. “I misunderstood what a Garden Show was. I thought it was to show off plants. I didn’t think it would be a food court. I can’t sell any of those because you may mistakenly eat it.”

Fessin cocked his head and looked over the plants on display. He laid his eyes on a sumptuous looking red one. “Do they just grow too slow to sell? What’s wrong with this one? It looks flavorful.”

“That one? It’s a rose. They’re not particularly difficult to grow. The hips can be consumed. However, take a closer look at that one,” the woman said.

Fessin leaned in and gasped. “The thing has teeth on it!”

Milek leaned in close to see what Fessin was talking about it. Sure enough, up and down the stem was a series of little sharp teeth sticking out of it.

“Those are called thorns,” the woman explained. “Unless you carefully cut those off, you can shred your insides. They also aren’t particularly nutritious.”

Milek blanched. That was insidious. Why would a plant want to hurt an animal? Presenting segments to eat was an important part of the reproductive cycle.

Fessin pointed at a different red flower. “And this one?”

“That’s a poinsettia. They’re toxic and, while not lethal, cause gastrointestinal distress,” the woman explained.

“And this one?” Milek asked, pointing at a plant with green leaves growing black colored berries.

“Balladona, that one is toxic enough to kill you.”

Milek was happy that the other species couldn’t visit Earth. If they did, most of them would be deceased the moment they passed a tantalizing bush outside the spaceport.

“So you didn’t bring anything to eat?” Fessin asked bluntly.

“Oh, I did,” the woman replied.

Milek smiled. “Can we take a look?”

“Sure. Unfortunately, I don’t have much, security wouldn’t let me bring most of it on the station,” the woman said as she pulled a wood box out from under one of the tables.

Milek knew she would regret asking, but she did anyway. “Why couldn’t you bring in the food?”

“So, apparently a lot of our food contains harmful substances. In sufficient quantity, they’re harmful to us, but it’s present in such low quantities, to us anyway, that it’s not a big deal.”

The woman started arranging a number of different items on the table. There was a flat green vegetable with little lumps under the surface, a small box of red berries and another small box with blue colored berries.

The woman then took out a tablet and touched it a few times. The picture of a red fruit came on the screen. “This, for instance, is an apple. It’s a common fruit we enjoy throughout the day. The problem is the seeds contain a substance called arsenic. Humans would have to crush up a large handful of the seeds to have an effect, so we can safely eat the whole thing, including the core, even though that’s not common. It is, however, lethal to you guys out here. It’s also present in citrus fruit, pears and grapes.”

She swiped her finger on the screen and a new picture popped up, this time of a yellow curved tube. “This is a banana. They contain potassium, which is important to the Human nervous system. They’re also mildly radioactive.”

The woman swiped the screen again. A variety of nuts came up. Milek’s mouth watered. She loved nuts. “These are various nuts. Almonds contain cyanide, which is a potent lethal compound. It’s in small enough quantities that the cultivated ones are safe, though we have to be careful with the wild ones. Even so much as 10 can kill a child.”

Milek sighed in disappointment that these nuts couldn’t be consumed. Which only got worse when the woman kept talking. “Other kinds of nuts can cause major anaphylactic shock episodes, including in a small subset of the Human population. They usually have to be careful and read warnings that something may contain nuts.”

Another picture of a different nut came up, this time with a two-segment shell. “This is called a peanut, though the name is deceptive since it’s a different class of plant called a legume. It can also be lethal, so I left them behind.”

“I think I heard enough,” Milek said, sad that Earth produced such impressive looking vegetables, fruit and nuts that couldn’t be consumed. “What about these?”

The woman pointed to the items in turn. “The green ones are snow peas. The red ones are raspberries. The blue ones are, creatively, blueberries. They have their own little quirks, though your security didn’t trigger them as toxic.”

Milek and Fessin looked at each other. Even with little quirks that passed security, they wondered if they could risk trying the fare.

The woman recognized the look. “Hey, I understand your hesitation after that big disclosure. Just because the security guys cleared it doesn’t make you feel comfortable.”

Fessin sighed. “You know what? I think I’ll give it a try. It would be rude not to. Maybe the red one.”

“First bite’s free,” the woman said, holding the box up.

Fessin gingerly gripped one of the red berries in his upper left arm and studied it. Milek looked down at the berry that had multiple small bulbous spheres attached in a rough cone shape with a hollow center. Taking a deep breath, Fessin popped it into his mouth.

His expression then lit up. “Wow! This is amazing! The sweetness exploded out of the fruit and is dancing on my tongue.”

Intrigued, Milek gestured at the green one. The woman handed it up.

Biting in, the plant snapped and sent back an unusual sensation. She found the crunchy exterior and soft interior balls a wonderful combination.

“Snow peas,” the woman explained. “There’s another version called a snap pea that makes a more satisfying pop, though I didn’t bring any of those along.”

The third fruit, the blueberry, was just as incredible. Milek ended up buying a box of the snap peas while Fessin took a box of raspberries.

As they chewed their treats, Milek pointed to a different table, “What are those?”

The woman turned and looked. “Ah, those are my carnivorous plants.”

Milek and Fessin both stopped mid-chew. Did they just hear the Human correctly? Carnivorous plants.

“I think the translator may be acting up,” Fessin replied. “Did you mean carnival plants?”

“No, carnivorous is right. These plants eat other things,” the woman explained, pride in her voice.

Milek and Fessin both took a big step away from the table. They were flabbergasted this Human casually sat by plants that could reach out and eat her.

The woman chuckled. “No, not like that. The biggest one out there can eat a rat and none of them are harmful to larger organisms. They mostly consume smaller insects. Here, have a look.”

The woman pulled out a different box and extracted a small wriggling worm thing. Milek looked at it with disgust. They reminded her of her people’s larval stage, though it was significantly smaller. “Didn’t the IPGS ban live demonstrations?”

The woman paused and looked at the worm. “Oh, sorry. Yea, I had to get an exception. These things are such low order lifeforms that we’re not even sure they feel pain. Insects on our world are barely above simple machines. The IPGS gave me an exception for this.”

That didn’t make Milek feel much better. It was like watching the Human feed her kids to a plant, which was entirely the opposite of what nature intended. Still, it wasn’t her place to question how the biology of another world functioned and watched.

The woman first took a small worm and placed it into the open folds of the plant with teeth. It contacted tiny hairs inside and the outer walls snapped shut, trapping the worm inside. “This is a venus flytrap. They activate when two of the small hairs inside their open mouths are triggered within a close timeframe. When closed, they secrete digestive enzymes that consume the trapped insect. They’re difficult to grow and require a proper soil acidity to thrive.”

She extracted a second worm, making Milek feel slightly nauseous. The Human then went over to a plant with long stalks that had a series of red hairs sticking out of it. At the end of the red hairs were small clear balls. The woman put the worm in one of the red hairs and released it, leaving it stuck to the plant. The plant then folded in on itself, trapping the worm in a coil. “This is commonly called a sundew. The plant sticks to its prey and wraps it up before digesting it and absorbing the nutrients through its wall.”

The final victim went into the plant shaped like a water jug. The worm fell in and the top of the jug closed, trapping it within. “This is creatively called a pitcher plant. Prey is attracted by a sweet smell and then falls into the interior.”

Fessin put on a forced smile. “That’s quite interesting. Earth has a rather unique ecosystem. Unfortunately, we have a few other things to take care of.”

After buying a few extra boxes of the berries, just to ensure they didn’t leave on a bad foot, the pair left.

Taking a quick peek back, Fessin blanched. “You know, I’m glad Earth’s gravity is too high to visit.”

“You have that right,” Milek replied. “Viewing the plants and animals in the safety of the IPGS is about as much as I can stand.”

As they went to find some more palatable food stands, Milek gave one last thought to the Humans. It was something that they could not only survive, but thrive, on a planet where they consumed toxic plants and lived next to dangerous predators. She counted herself lucky that they were friendly. She couldn’t imagine what they’d be like if they decided to be hostile.
The Finale

tl;dr: STAR Voting aims to fix the fundamental bug in the vote, our system of collective choice in representation, and in so doing, help to repair our political process. STAR is on the ballot - Measure 20-349 - as an amendment to the Eugene City Charter, and if passed, we will be the first voters in the world to use STAR for municipal elections. Recommend a deep dive and a YES vote. Also, answers to "opposition" statements in the voter's guide and the follow-on misleading text messages and mailers that Portland astroturfers are sending our way.
What up Eugene? Now that the voter guide is here and our mailboxes and phones are overflowing with political pleas, I thought it'd be appropriate to follow on from the "college-level"/"possibly AI-generated" essay I penned here a fortnight'ish past, with particular emphasis on shining a light on the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) slung from afar in an attempt to sink the measure.
Quick intro-- among other reasonable ways of passing the time, I am the founder of and a volunteer for the Equal Vote Coalition (http://equal.vote), a Eugene, OR-based nonprofit dedicated to true equality in the vote. I've been ruminating on this particular fundamental issue since 1990, when I experienced the "spoiler effect" up close (more on the spoiler effect below), but the breakthrough ideas didn't arrive until 2011, and didn't get in motion until 2013-2014 with the Unified Primary initiative. That effort evolved into the Equal Vote Coalition and led to the invention of STAR Voting.
What is STAR Voting?
STAR Voting is a relatively new voting method that aims to give voters and candidates a truly level playing field in the political process, and in so doing, embody the meanings of "one person, one vote" and "We The People" in how we determine our representatives.
Wait, what's a voting method? Is this about campaign finance, gerrymandering, or the electoral college?
Voting method reform is a topic that is arguably more fundamental to our present political dysfunction, but it's subtle. A voting method comprises both the format of the ballot for the choice "we the people" are making, and the procedure for counting all of our individual vote expressions to determine an overall choice. Our current voting method, as well as some other long-peddled alternatives, have some real issues that amplify the influence of money and partisanship in the political process.
So... we can vote on how we vote?
Yup. A diverse team of passionate Eugene innovators have stepped up to bring a real solution to the table for all of us: after 10 years of validation and trial runs, a volunteer-powered crew of locals collected almost 15,000 signatures from Eugene voters to put this fundamental question in front of us. Oregon has a long history of political process reform leadership, from vote-by-mail to the creation of the citizen initiative process itself. STAR is the next big leap- it was invented here in Eugene, and if 20-349 passes, we will be the first municipality in the world to adopt STAR for our local city elections.
Blah blah blah. What is STAR?
STAR stands for 'Score Then Automatic Runoff", which describes in just four words exactly how it works. STAR is a change both to the format of the ballot (the "user interface" if you will) as well as the tabulation system to sum all of those ballots into our collective choice.
The STAR ballot is a simple yet radical change. Instead of limiting our voice to choosing just one "favorite" in the field, STAR uses the now nearly ubiquitous 0-5 "star" scoring system for each candidate. So instead of just picking one of two "frontrunners" in the field (or "wasting" the vote on a candidate we truly support who isn't a "frontrunner"), with STAR we can express an equally-weighted opinion on each of the options on the ballot and see who we truly agree on.
What's so bad about the status quo?
The way we vote now for city elections, we actually have two separate votes. All of the candidates are on the first ballot in May. If no candidate achieves 50%+1 of the single-choice votes, the two who get the most "single choice" votes advance to the November election; otherwise only a single candidate for the office shows up on the general election ballot. The result of this is that either November voters get one choice (which is no choice at all), or the top two candidates have to run a whole new election to determine the winner. This system is bad for voters and bad for candidates who have to potentially dial for dollars for six extra months.
STAR effectively lets us run a two-phase decision process with a single ballot and much higher accuracy. Here's how:
If you just added up all the stars from the voters and elected the one who got the most stars, that would be an example of the voting method known as "score voting." Score Voting is great for a number of reasons, among them that it entirely eliminates the spoiler effect.
Wait. What's the Spoiler Effect?
The "spoiler effect", also known as "vote-splitting" is an unfortunate property of some voting methods, including the "choose only one" method we use now. When we are limited to a single choice in an election, that election is only fair and equal for the voters if there are at most two candidates. Any time there are more two, the more similar candidates divide support, giving more weight in the vote to those who prefer fewer candidates, which leads to severely non-representative outcomes.
Voters are therefore discouraged from supporting candidates they may truly align with and instead told to vote for the "lesser evil" to prevent the worst outcome from winning. Our present political reality is the result of running this broken process over hundreds of years at every level of government.
Score Voting solves the spoiler problem by allowing the voter to express an opinion on each candidate independently. Instead of being limited to one choice and having to consider things like who the media and special interests say is "electable", a score voter can always give full support to his/hetheir favorite.
Gonna let that sink in. Ok, moving on.
That said, Score Voting has drawn fire from advocates of other systems for concerns over strategic voting and that Score doesn't demonstrate a majority preference amongst the voters.
So STAR doesn't just add all the scores to find the winner?
No. STAR adds a simple twist, but it's important. STAR starts by adding all the scores, to determine which two are the most supported candidates overall. Then, STAR uses the preferences voters expressed on the ballot to determine the winner between the two most supported candidates (the "finalists"). This is the "automatic runoff" part of STAR.
Example: Let's say there's an election for "Best Jedi of all Time" between Luke, Rey, Vader, and Obi-Wan. If Luke and Vader are the finalists, and you gave Luke a higher score than Vader, your vote goes to Luke. If you scored Vader higher than Luke, then your vote goes to Vader. If you scored them both the same, then your vote is counted as a vote of equal preference between the two (but still sus. -- you have the range of 0-5 stars to express, definitely gotta differentiate between Skywalkers. --ed).
It's this second step that makes STAR both much more nuanced for voters as well as highly resistant to strategic voting. It's also what guarantees a majority winner between the finalists (and shows just how much of a "majority" that public servant has).
For the voters, this means that we can honestly express our true support level for every candidate on the ballot, regardless of what the pre-election consensus says are the "electable" options, and also, that differentiating our scores where we have true preferences has a meaningful impact.
In essence, this measure combines a radically more nuanced "primary" with a top two runoff into a single vote for all the voters and all the candidates.
Can I kick the tires and try it for myself?
Yes! The web site http://star.vote lets you create a STAR Voting poll and see how the counting system works. If you don't want to create your own poll, you can try it on this "Best Park in Eugene" poll here: https://star.vote/bestparkeug/
Yeah, but why should I care enough to return my ballot?
As nerdy as it may sound, the vote is the container for all of politics. Whatever issue in the public domain you care about, the vote is primary, because it determines who represents us in all of those decisions. Our country was founded on the notion that we are all to have an equal say in this most fundamental franchise, but some math bugs have plagued our default method from the start. STAR Voting provides a demonstrably equal weight and nuanced voice to all the voters, so this one is worth chiming in on, even if you are super disillusioned.
You can read more about the equal weight vote here: http://equal.vote/theequalvote. Moving on.
I can't believe I read through all this drivel. I was promised juicy tidbits about the opposition!
Fine. Fine! I'll get to it, but first, a little context. STAR was first petitioned for public elections in 2018, for all of Lane County. While that measure narrowly lost, Eugene voters preferred it by a significant margin. The team took in the feedback from that effort (like, why don't you start at the city level first?), and organized a crew of passionate volunteers and change-makers to put it before voters this cycle.
But there's apparently a problem. Well-funded advocates of Ranked Choice Voting, a...
WAIT. WTF is Ranked Choice Voting?
Ok, fine. But you asked. Like STAR, "Ranked Choice Voting" (RCV) is an alternative voting method. Specifically, RCV refers to the "Instant Runoff" system. Where STAR allows voters to "star" candidates independently from 0 stars (no support) to 5 stars (maximum support), in RCV, voters "rank" candidates in order of preference - first choice, second choice, third choice, and so on. RCV is counted in multiple rounds - each round eliminates the candidate with the fewest ballots in "first choice" position, and then transfers those votes to the voters' next non-eliminated candidate until there is a majority amongst the remaining "non-exhausted" ballots.
RCV is not a new system -- it's been around for ~150 years, and has been adopted and repealed many times in the US. Due in no small part to the level of political dysfunction witnessed by more and more of us, RCV has regained traction and momentum in recent years.
Does Ranked Choice Voting solve the Spoiler Effect?
No. Ranked Choice Voting hides the Spoiler Effect behind a complicated and broken counting system. In elections with more than two viable candidates, RCV counts the secondary preferences of some of the voters whose first choice couldn't win but discards the second choices of others, which leads to skewed, non-representative outcomes in meaningful contests.
As just one very recent example, Alaska adopted RCV statewide and first used it in 2022. RCV had a significant spoilecounting failure in that first use, and Alaskans have put it on the ballot for repeal this year. You can a detailed and animated breakdown of what happened there at this link: http://rcvchangedalaska.com.
During the 2024 session in Salem, well-funded advocates of Ranked Choice helped persuade the Oregon Legislature to refer a Ranked Choice measure for statewide offices to voters in Oregon. We'll all get to opine on that choice on our November ballots.
Yeah, but what does that have to do with the current STAR Voting measure on the ballot for Eugene?
In truth, not much. The RCV measure in November only affects statewide offices like Governor, representatives in Congress, AG, etc. The STAR measure on the ballot now only affects Eugene city offices like Mayor and City Councilor.
So why is there organized opposition from Portland and out of state for the Eugene measure?
Did I mention that well-funded advocates of Ranked Choice helped persuade the legislature to put RCV on the ballot? They're presently gearing up to dump a bunch of cash pushing Ranked Choice on Oregon's November voters. Perhaps the possible adoption of a home-grown, vetted, science-backed, best-in-class method in Oregon's second largest city would run counter to the narrative that RCV is a cutting-edge reform?
Hard to know for sure, but these Portland champions are clearly spending real cash against a local Eugene great governance measure, and there is no doubt that the public arguments put forward opposing STAR are deeply misleading.
Them sound like fightin' words! Go on...
Ok. here goes, but first, I want to acknowledge that not all of the questions about STAR are coming from a place of nefarious motives. Any fundamental change to the election system will have real impact on the political outcomes that affect us all, and since STAR is a new system that has yet to be implemented at the municipal level, real scrutiny and consideration are warranted. That said, the fact that the official opposition is spearheaded by advocates of Ranked Choice who don't vote in Eugene is a relevant factor in considering the arguments they have put forward.
1. Complexity and Confusion, oh my!
Any deviation from our tried-but-not-true "choose only one" method will demand thorough education of the electorate on how the new system works. Of particular concern are historically under-represented groups - will already-marginalized people vote in a way that is less powerful than others, and thereby magnify rather than mitigate historical inequalities?
This is a valid question. The principal argument for the status quo is that it is dead simple. Changing to a voting system that is more accurate and expressive introduces the concern that "smart voters" will have an advantage on the ballot over "average voters," let alone presently-disadvantaged "low information" voters.
STAR was developed and refined with this concern in mind. Unlike both our present system and Ranked Choice, the expression of equal preference is allowed in STAR. You like three candidates a lot? Give 'em all 5 stars. You only like one? No problem - you can give that one a 5 and move on - STAR is fully "backward compatible" with the way we vote now. But say you want anyone but Bob. In STAR, give Bob zero and the rest 5. You have a solid second choice? Give your favorite a 5 and your second a 4 -- helps both to achieve the top two while preserving your preference if they both make the runoff. The STAR ballot is both more expressive and substantially harder to spoil than our current method and RCV. What's more, because we won't have to consider "electability" in our expression, the strategic "lesser evil" calculus that is such a turnoff in our present system will finally no longer be necessary.
But what if some voters don't use the full range of scores?
As STAR advocates have honed the method and its explanation over the last decade, it has become very clear that explaining the method and how to vote with it is incredibly important. This is why the Eugene measure on the ballot includes specific language to appear on the STAR ballot about how to vote in STAR. Specifically, the measure includes the following:
"The scoring scale shall be labeled "worst" (0 stars) to "best" (5 stars)." and "The ballot shall include instructions which convey the following information in clear and accessible language:
Give your favorite(s) five stars. Give your last choice(s) zero stars. Score other candidates as desired. Equal scores indicate no preference. Candidates left blank receive zero stars."
Further, the Equal Vote Coalition has publicly committed to ongoing educational efforts alongside the county elections folks should the measure pass. The http://star.vote website as well as the wealth of explanatory materials at http://starvoting.org and http://equal.vote, which have been refined through interactions with tens of thousands of Oregon voters, are examples of this commitment.
That said, voters are not required to use the full scale. With STAR you could express your general displeasure with all the options by only using 1's and 0's, and regardless of the range of scores you use, your full vote always goes to the finalist you prefer (even if only a little), or is counted as a vote of equal preference if you star them the same.
But do voters who star more candidates highly have more weight than those who don't?
No. In STAR, every voter gets an equally-weighted voice on each candidate. In the "Bob" example above, the voter who only stars Bob and the voter who scores everyone but Bob have exactly equal power -- and we know this because those two votes exactly balance each other, meaning that the election outcome is the same whether both or neither are counted.
Ok, well, I get the 0-5 thing, but I'm still concerned about all the "average voters" out there.
This refrain is possibly the most common and misguided concern I've personally run across when talking to self-identified "smart voters". The STAR team has now petitioned this method to tens of thousands of Eugene and Oregon voters and we have found that the 0-5 star scale is immediately understood by statistically everyone, perhaps because of its common use in so many other domains. "0 bad, 5 good!" also tends to dispel any residual confusion.
The only class of folks I've run across whose eyes truly glaze over in furious computation when confronted with STAR are political insiders who can't figure out how to game it. That's a feature, not a bug.
All that said, please try it for yourself! Create a poll at http://star.vote for lunch options and send it to your "average voter" and historically disenfranchised friends. If we are all to move to a new way of exercising our collective choice, understanding and practice are critically important.
But what about the "automatic runoff"? Is that added complexity necessary?
Yes, as described above, the automatic runoff step is what makes sure that STAR always elects the majority favorite between the two most supported candidates, as well as what ensures that the voter's preference is fully recognized, even it's between a 1 and a 0 or a 5 and a 4 in the scores. The automatic runoff also makes STAR highly resistant to gaming and strategic voting, because both the level of support and expressed preference are used in the count. This feature has been extensively tested and validated by voting system experts using numerical methods, which found STAR to be best-in-class for representation accuracy versus dozens of voting method alternatives when considering both honest and strategic voters. This recently published peer-reviewed paper goes way deep on this front - and video I cooked up a few years back tries to show this math nerd stuff visually, comparing "choose one", Ranked Choice, Score, and STAR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4FXLQoLDBA.
And on the complexity front, the comparison of STAR and Ranked Choice is no contest. STAR's counting method is demonstrably simpler, more transparent, and less error-prone than RCV. STAR is always computed in two steps - add the scores, then determine the majority favorite between the top two. Ranked Choice can take many rounds of counting and vote transfer to determine the winner. STAR can also be summed by precinct, while Ranked Choice requires centralized tabulation, which has led to multi-week delays of results when adopted for statewide elections. 2. I got a text from the League of Women Voters saying they oppose STAR because it doesn't comply with the principle of majority preference. What say you?
Are you sure? The text messages I've seen didn't actually come from the League of Women Voters. They came from a Portland political group misrepresenting a LWV paper about STAR. That paper opens with the clear statement "We fully recognize that STAR voting is preferred to plurality, as is true for almost every other electoral system."
This is the choice we face in Eugene presently: STAR versus the "choose only one" plurality status quo.
Yeah, but it goes on from there...
Indeed. While local league members have expressed strong support for STAR and have helped organize informational town halls around Eugene, the state and national organizations are firmly aligned with the push for Ranked Choice, and most of their analyses on voting methods actually predate the invention of STAR Voting. As such, some of their concerns actually relate to other systems and are misapplied when considering STAR. You can read the recent full LWV paper on STAR here. To the points specifically raised by the Oregon League:
STAR is a "Cardinal" system and we prefer "Ordinal" systems.
The premise here is not correct. "Cardinal" voting methods are those that compute the winner from the "level of support" expressed by the voters, like Approval and Score Voting. "Ordinal" voting methods are those that determine the winner from the "preference order" expressed by the voters. STAR is actually both.
But what about the principle of majority preference?
This concern, which has also been spammed to voters on glossy mailers, is misapplied with STAR. STAR always elects the majority favorite of the two most supported candidates overall-- that's the whole point of the automatic runoff step. If there is magically some candidate who is preferred on a majority of ballots that doesn’t make it into the top two, there is a much larger majority that supports two other candidates at very high levels (or equally) to that one. This is a feature, not a bug.
What about the League's concern about strategic voting due to pre-election polling?
To my knowledge, the League has offered no explanation of their assertion here- ie, how would a STAR voter change a vote due to polling data in order to achieve a better outcome? This question has been extensively analyzed by voting scientists, however, who have found that STAR is highly resistant to strategic manipulation - a voter's attempt to game STAR is as likely to backfire as benefit, because the voter's stars are used both to determine level of support and preference between the top two. Researchers have consistently found that STAR yields best-in-class representative outcomes even in the presence of strategic voting. In STAR, honesty is the best policy. Now you might think, "well, what if I give all the candidates from my party a 5 and everyone else 0?" That's a perfectly valid vote in STAR, but then you're letting everyone else choose between the top two if both are from your party or not. Fair is fair.
Finally, the Oregon League's claim that RCV is somehow immune to strategic manipulation is both unsupportable and beside the point. RCV's fundamental fail is that it breaks (ie yields non-representative outcomes due to discarding the preferences of some voters) in races with three or more viable candidates. This makes it a non-starter from the perspective of the equally-weighted vote mandate. We can do way better. Again, see http://rcvchangedalaska.com for a full breakdown.
3. Ok, but what about the claim that STAR is a "wildcard" system, never before tested in public elections?
Not true. STAR's first use in a binding public election was in 2020, when it was used in the nominating contest for the Independent Party of Oregon. This was a fantastic stress test of STAR, and the system delivered, electing the "beats-all" Condorcet candidate in each contest. You can read the endorsements from the Independent Party and other minor parties in the voter guide. STAR has also been tested through hundreds of online polls, is used in internal political party officer elections in Oregon, as well as student government elections. All that said, if we adopt it, Eugene will be the first city in the world to use it for municipal elections.
4. The glossy hit piece said this is going to be super expensive for Eugene to implement. What about that?
The oppo mailer you may have already received claims that we're going to have to pay out the ear for a "brand new system to print and count ballots". That's pure hogwash. The same printers and scanners that generate and count our current ballots can be used for STAR, albeit with modest software updates. Although Clear Ballot, Lane County's voting system vendor, was unwilling to provide a firm cost estimate to petitioners, we went ahead and coded up a 40-line Python script using Clear Ballot output to generate STAR election results. Took about two hours. You can peruse the source code here: https://github.com/nardo/Equal.Vote/tree/masteClearVote
Still, voting system updates have hard costs including testing and certification (the Clear Ballot rep ballparked $50k while the County put the upper bound at $140k using other jurisdictions' experiences with the more-complex RCV as a comparator).
Add in a voter education campaign (Lane County has estimate $200k for this), and we're starting to get to real numbers... but to put those numbers in perspective, consider that the biennial operating budget for the city is almost $1 billion (see: https://nbc16.com/news/local/city-of-eugene-finalizes-its-2023-2025-operating-budget). Is it worth spending 0.025% of our biennial budget to ensure we all have truly equal representation in how the other 99.975% is spent? Hard yes.
Further, the startup costs will be recouped and we will ultimately save money for Eugene, candidates, and voters, since we won't have to run two elections each cycle for city offices.
5. What are your thoughts on the oppo glossy's sick burn, "[Zero Stars], Would not recommend --Eugene"?
Hey, at least they demonstrated a clear understanding of the 0-5 STAR scale. One star for trying, Portland politicos.
6. Dude. It's 3 AM. Shouldn't you get some sleep?
Good point. Hitting the sack directly. Much love, Eugene! However you cast your ballot, really appreciate the deep consideration on this one, and if this post resonates, please pass it on.
Cheers, Mark