I volunteered to make calls for a friend running for a city office and it surprised me when people actually answered the phone and wanted to talk. I found it even more surprising when regular voters said they felt confused about ranked choice voting. That made me realize we definitely need more information out there.
More than 73 percent of voters in 2019 approved ranked choice voting in a ballot referendum. The idea was to get rid of expensive runoff elections when one candidate did not get over 40 percent of the vote.
So here we are confused about ranked choice voting and a lot of us wonder how we’ll work it out.
The basics of ranked choice voting go like this:
1. You choose your favorite candidate as your number one.
2. You then choose four other candidates in order of preference.
3. In the first round of counting, the candidate with least number of votes gets eliminated. If your top candidate is eliminated your vote goes to your second choice or the highest ranking person on your ballot.
If by some miracle over 50 percent of us have the same idea on the first round, the person with more than 50 percent of the vote wins. But if that doesn’t happen, a computerized process run by the New York City Board of Elections will keep reallocating votes to eliminate those with fewest votes.
It’s too bad that we have to rely on the famously inefficient city elections board, which should have been reformed decades ago. But that’s where we are and it’s still important to vote because we will have a sea change in city government. The mayor, all fifty-one city council seats, the public advocate, the comptroller, the borough presidents and district attorneys are all up for election.
Race for Mayor
Nine of the thirteen Democrats running for mayor have the financial support that put them in the major debates. They include alphabetically:
Eric Adams
Shaun Donovan
Kathryn Garcia
Raymond McGuire
Dianne Morales
Scott Stringer
Maya Wiley
Andrew Yang
On the Republican side:
Fernando Mateo
Curtis Sliwa
Race for Public Advocate
If the mayor leaves office, the public advocate becomes mayor until a special election.
Theo Chino Tavarez
Anthony Herbert, Sr.
Jumaane Williams
Race for Comptroller
The comptroller keeps track of the city’s money, trusts and pension.
Brian Benjamin
Michelle Caruso-Cabrera
Zachary Iscol
Corey Johnson
Brad Lander
Terri Liftin
Alex K. Pan
Kevin Parker
Rashima Patel
David Weprin
You can find your city council candidates through NYCVotes, created by the New York City Campaign Finance Board. It’s the independent agency that watches over elections. You can also find information on NYCVotes about all the candidates including the borough presidents and the district attorneys.
Here’s a good guide from The Community Service Society that gives a clear view of the candidates.
