Pick five!
New Yorkers can yet again select as many as five candidates in the mayoral race and other contests up and down the ballot during the Big Apple’s June 24 primary elections, thanks to ranked-choice voting.
Early voting for the mayoral primary race and others begins Saturday, June 14 and lasts through Sunday, June 22.
The newfangled ranked-choice voting, or RCV, was first rolled out in a 2021’s mayoral election, so many ballot-casters may need a refresher.
RCV ballots asks voters list their top-five candidates in order of preference.
What’s this new-ish ballot?
The New York City ballot now looks a whole lot like the multiple-choice scantron sheets from high school tests of yore.
Like in elections past, each race will now include a list of candidates. But now, there is a grid of bubbles next to the candidates and five columns, allowing voters to select one choice for each of the ballot slots.
Voters can only pick one hopeful for each choice and should select a different candidate for each one. If the same prospect is chosen for all five slots, it counts as only one vote.
There’ll be plenty of options this year — with 11 people on the ballot in the Democratic mayoral primary race, plus a twelfth place for write-ins.
How does ranked choice voting work?
It begins with determining which candidate got the smallest number of votes in the first round — and knocking them out of the race.
But if knocked out in the first round, their ballots aren’t relegated. Instead, the city Board of Elections tallies the second-choices of voters who had that candidate as their top pick — and allocates them across the remaining candidates.
The votes are counted again and the candidate who is in last place after the second round is then excluded — and the ballots cast for them as No. 1 choice that also listed a second option are reallocated.
Those who rank the first loser as their first choice and then the second loser as their second choice will have their votes then reallocated to their third choice, if they marked one.
This process repeats until there are just two candidates standing and whoever has collected the most votes wins.
Have an example?
Say we have a Democratic mayoral primary composed of Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, Robert Moses, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ed Koch and John Lindsay.
Hamilton nets 73 votes, placing last — even behind that loser, Burr.
All of the Hamilton backers who marked a second choice would have their votes reallocated to the remaining candidates — including Burr.
Burr then places last in the second round of voting, missing his shot.
But if his voters marked their second choices on the ballot, their votes are then reallocated to the remaining candidates.
If any Hamilton voters happened to back Burr, their votes are then reallocated to their third choice.
In the third round, Lindsay places last and so his ballots are redistributed according to the marked preference for the next choice; then Koch loses the fourth round, so his ballots are redistributed, too.
The race has boiled down to just two candidates — Franklin Roosevelt and Robert Moses (who, according to biographer Robert Caro, hated each other).
And whoever gets the most votes win.
Why fill all five slots?
New Yorkers love winners.
And for years, New York held runoff elections for contests for the top two candidates from any race if the initial winner got less than 40% of the vote, giving every voter the chance to pick a winner.
The runoffs and the behind-the-scenes machinations were the stuff of lore — most famously, the brutal 1977 battle between Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo — and yet, they typically produced dismal turnout.
Good government groups have argued for years that one cost-effective solution would be a system that allows for instant runoffs, instead of getting voters to go back to the polls two weeks after the primary for the final bout.
But it only fulfills its designed purpose if New Yorkers make their second, third, fourth and fifth choices on the ballot.
Opponents have argued the switch is bound to confuse voters, particularly older New Yorkers who are used to picking just one candidate at a time and may not be aware of the change.
When will we know who won?
New Yorkers may not know who officially won the primary until long after polls close.
The Board of Elections will provide unofficial results for the first round of ranked-choice votes on election night, but further rounds won’t be counted until July 1, Politico first reported.
The board needs time to gather voting machines from across the five boroughs to ensure accuracy, according to Politico.
Sacrificing speed for accuracy may be a good thing, given an embarrassing kerfuffle during RCV’s debut in 2021.
The inaugural RCV count was wracked by difficulties, namely BOE officials accidentally including “test” results in the vote count, which led to 135,000 extra ballots.
The blunder was fixed, although voters and candidates still had to wait days for final results as absentee ballots sent by mail also needed to be counted.
Elections officials and voters now have more experience with RCV, along with fewer likely absentee ballots, so things may go more smoothly – but don’t bet big money on that.
What big races are on the ballot and who are the candidates?
The big ticket race is the Democratic mayoral primary, where 11 candidates are vying for a chance to battle incumbent Mayor Eric Adams – a Democrat who is running on an independent line – in the November election.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, City Comptroller Brad Lander, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, former city Comptroller Scott Stringer, state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson, former Obama administration official Michael Blake, state Sen. Jessica Ramos, perennial candidate Paperboy Love Prince and newcomer Selma Bartholomew are all on the ballot.
Cuomo has been the consistent frontrunner in the polls, with Mamdani lapping at his heels and Lander at a distant third.
The Republicans have no mayoral candidates in the primary, as Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa is their presumptive nominee.
The Democratic public advocate race is a three-way contest between incumbent Jumaane Williams, state Assemblywoman Jennifer Rajkumar and retired insurance executive Marty Dolan.
Williams has the overwhelming lead, getting 54% of the vote to Rajkumar’s measly 9%, according to a Honan Strategy Group poll from June 11.
Four Democratic candidates are running for city comptroller: City Councilman Justin Brannan, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, state Sen. Kevin Parker and longtime city employee Ismael Malave Perez.
Levine is the presumptive frontrunner with 44% compared to Brannan’s 14% — but over a third of voters had yet to make up their minds, the poll found.
Two Republicans are vying for the city comptroller nomination: political newcomer Peter Kefalas and perennial candidate Danniel Maio.
An internal poll from Brannan’s camp had him down by 11%, Levine getting 30% and 44% undecided.
https://nypost.com/article/how-does-nycs-ranked-choice-voting-system-work/
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.