Third Way: Ranked-Choice Voting in NYC Mayoral Primary Election
While Americans might think that our voting and election system, a first-past-the-post voting system where whoever receives the greatest number of votes wins, is the way that every democratic country votes. However, there are several other different kinds of voting systems used around the world. Some American states and cities have recently adopted a form of preferential voting where voters rank candidates based on preference. In the US, multiple cities have moved to a type of preferential voting called rank-choice voting. While some might question this idea, as it is different from the norm, ranked-choice voting gives more of a voice to the people in elections.
Ranked-Choice Voting
In a ranked-choice voting system, voters rank their preferred candidates in order and the winner is determined after several rounds of counting ballots. The ballots are all counted originally according to each ballot’s selected first choice candidate, and the winner must get over 50% of the vote. If no one receives over 50% of the first-choice votes – which is highly likely when there are multiple candidates – then the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and these ballots are reallocated to other candidates. This is done by taking the second-choice candidate from each of the eliminated candidate’s ballots and distributing them as votes for the remaining candidates. If this does not produce a majority either, then the new candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and this process continues until someone has received over 50% of the vote.
New York City, which is currently in the midst of its primary elections, has instituted ranked-choice voting for the first time in decades. Each voter is instructed to rank their top five candidates in order on the ballot. While some other cities and states have also started using ranked-choice voting, such as Maine, New York City is the largest electoral system to use it recent history. This makes New York City’s mayoral elections one of the most important elections in recent news as, if the election goes well, other cities and states might consider implementing ranked-choice voting instead of their current first-past-the-post system.
The controversy of Ranked-Choice Voting
The purpose behind using ranked-choice and preferential voting as opposed to first-past-the-post systems is to encourage greater democracy. In the typical American election, where each voter can select only one candidate, a candidate can win without receiving the majority of the vote. As a representative democracy is supposed to represent the interests and choices of voters, is a system that results in representatives and leaders who are disliked by so many of the voters truly a fair and democratic system? In ranked-choice voting, even if someone’s top-choice candidate is eliminated, their voice is still heard as their votes are then reallocated. Further, it is still possible that their second-choice candidate might win in the end. Rank-choice voting, therefore, should allow voters to feel more comfortable voting for someone that is not necessarily favored to win as, even if that person is eliminated, their voice would still be heard in their other ranked choices. As Rob Richie, the co-founder and president of FairVote explains, ranked-choice voting “allows you to vote for the person you really like. And if that person ends up being not a particularly strong candidate, and doesn’t have a chance to win, your ballot goes to your backup choice”.
One aspect of ranked-choice voting that is especially controversial is that candidates can now endorse one another. In a regular election, this only occurs when someone drops out of the race, such as Bernie telling his voters to give their support to Hillary Clinton after he lost the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. However, in ranked-choice voting candidates can tell their supporters to rank another candidate, one with similar views and policy proposals, as their second choice. This was the case in the NYC Democratic mayoral primary, as candidate Andrew Yang endorsed another candidate, Kathryn Garcia. This can be a good thing; it can help voters who only know their top preference to select another candidate that would hopefully achieve some of the same goals. Although, some believe that this form of endorsement is anti-democratic. Eric Adams, the frontrunner in the Democratic mayoral primary, believed that this union was racially motivated and targeted specifically against him, as he is a Black man currently favorited to win. Ultimately, however, the co-endorsement of other candidates is likely helpful for voters, especially those who are not sure who to vote for after their first choice.
The Divisiveness of the NYC Mayoral Primary
While all elections can be said to feature negative campaigning, ranked-choice voting is supposedly supposed to discourage it. Candidates are trying to not only win first-place in voter’s hearts, but also second and third place from voters who are leaning towards another candidate. This means that candidates would theoretically avoid anything that would make voters view them more skeptically, which includes negative campaigning. While the NYC mayoral campaign trail still saw several instances of this regardless, one of the worst offenses cannot be blamed on candidates. Instead, during the final Democratic primary debate, a question was posed asking each candidate to name the worst idea that they had heard from another candidate. This led to several aggressive comments and fiery rebuttals coming from the candidates. This question had no other purpose but to cause division and arguments between the candidates. As the NYC mayoral primary did not seem to see a change in the amount of critique and negative campaigning from previous primaries and elections, it does not appear from this race that ranked-choice voting truly discourages negative campaigning and attacks.
The Democratic primary was especially interesting due to the current political and social movements of the times. While there have been loud calls regarding the defunding of the police since May of 2020, the current frontrunner of the race, Eric Adams, is a former police officer. This begs the question of how strongly New York City residents truly feel about the defunding of the police, especially as Adams has focused on an increase in officers in high-crime neighborhoods – which are typically Black and Brown neighborhoods. If he is the frontrunner and wins with a staunch amount of support from Black and Brown voters, how strong is the push for the defunding of the police? In contrast, another Black candidate Maya Wiley, is focused on the opposite and wants to reduce the number of police officers as well as revamp the system. This has led to several face-offs between the two candidates, as they are both top candidates but are calling for radically different approaches to an issue that is at the forefront of most voters’ minds right now, both with the Black Lives Matter movement being so prominent as well as a recent increase in violent crime in NYC.
Results of the Primary Election
While the final results of NYC’s primary election will not be known for several weeks to come, due to both the late counting of absentee ballots as well as the time-consuming aspect of reallocation, the first round of votes was released just after the election. This put Eric Adams with 31.7% of the first choice and Maya Wiley and Kathryn Garcia at 22.3% and 19.5% respectively. In a typical election, Eric Adams would have already been declared the winner since he had the highest number of votes, even though he is far from a majority of the city’s Democratic voters supporting him. However, after 9 rounds of counting the ballots, Eric Adams is now in a much closer race with Kathryn Garcia, as he has 51.1% of the votes and she has 48.9%. This demonstrates the benefit of ranked-choice voting, as whoever wins will have to have a clear majority of the votes and thus more people will feel adequately represented and heard. Because there were only two Republican candidates, ranked-choice voting did not have any bearing for the Republican mayoral primary and the winner, Curtis Sliwa, has already been declared. This showcases another benefit of ranked-choice voting – while it is extremely helpful in races with many people running such as the Democratic mayoral primary, it does not have any consequences for races with fewer people running either.
The results of this election will be extremely important for several reasons. First, whoever is determined as the winner of the Democratic primary is highly likely to be the next New York City mayor, as the extremely “blue” city has had only one Republican mayor (Rudy Giuliani) in the last fifty years. Second, as mentioned previously, this is the largest US jurisdiction to use ranked-choice voting in recent history. If the election is successful, this could change the way of the American voting system nationwide. Hopefully, more states and cities would adopt ranked-choice voting, as it does promote greater democracy and gives more of a voice to the voters. In the weeks to come, regardless of people’s political affiliations or residential city, many eyes will be on the NYC mayoral primary election and its results.
