Haven’t done the math on how that would behave exactly, but you could effectively weight the rank of one group of candidates higher and one group lower while your total contribution is still the same, which has a similar effect as you mentioned with STAR but still forces a relative ranking to show preferences in between candidates you approve of and those you disapprove of.
Ranked choice voting with room for blank spaces?
Haven’t done the math on how that would behave exactly, but you could effectively weight the rank of one group of candidates higher and one group lower while your total contribution is still the same, which has a similar effect as you mentioned with STAR but still forces a relative ranking to show preferences in between candidates you approve of and those you disapprove of.