Latest news with #NewYorkCityBoardofElections
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Explaining New York City's ranked-choice voting system and when to expect results
Voters in New York City will once again be asked to rank up to five candidates in the Democratic primary for mayor, four years after the process was slow and marred by a major tabulation error. City officials are confident that the ranked-choice voting process will be faster and smoother this time, due in part to a change in state law that should result in most votes being reported on Election Day, June 24. This year's Democratic primary features 11 candidates on the ballot, including former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and several progressive challengers with state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani leading the way. If no candidate tops 50% of first-choice votes, support for the lowest vote-getters is then redistributed in rounds based on voters' other rankings until only two candidates remain. Advocates say the 'instant runoff' system allows voters to have more of a say over who wins beyond choosing just one person. Critics argue the system is overly confusing and could disadvantage less engaged voters. Here's what to expect and more detail about how the system works. June 14-22: Early voting is underway. June 24: Election Day. First-choice results are released from Election Day and early votes and from mail ballots received by Friday, June 20. July 1: The receipt deadline for mail ballots postmarked by Election Day. Initial ranked choice results are released, with further releases every Tuesday. July 15: New York City Board of Elections certifies primary results. The ballot is a grid, with candidate names on the left and columns for each numbered choice. (View the ballot here.) Each voter ranks up to five choices. Then the votes are counted. If more than half of voters rank a candidate as their first choice, that person wins. If no candidate wins a majority of first-choice votes, ballots are tabulated round by round. In each round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, with those votes reallocated to whoever their voters listed as their next choice. That process continues until only two candidates are left. The candidate with the most votes wins. On Election Night, the New York City Board of Elections will report first-choice results for what is likely to be the majority of ballots cast. The results will include Election Day ballots, early-voting ballots and mail ballots that were received by Friday, June 20. One week later, on July 1, officials will take those votes, plus any additional ballots they've counted since Election Day, and release a first look at the ranked-choice results. These results will show who is ahead after all the rounds of tabulation, but because they won't include all the ballots cast in the race, they won't be the final results. After that, the board will release an updated count plus ranked-choice tabulation every Tuesday until the results are complete. Each update could include properly postmarked mail ballots that arrive close to or after Election Day (ballots can be received until July 1) and provisional ballots that are approved by officials after the election. The board plans to certify the results on July 15. This means that with each update, it's possible the order of candidates eliminated could change. The CNN Decision Desk will project a winner either on Election Night, if it's certain that one candidate will win more than 50% of the first-choice votes, or after a ranked choice tabulation. In a ranked-choice tabulation, there will always be fewer ballots at the end of the count then there are at the beginning. As the count continues, ballots are 'exhausted' when every candidate the voter ranked is eliminated. There are two major mistakes that voters can make. If a voter ranks multiple candidates in the same position, their vote in that position, and any further rankings in the race, are invalidated. Take the example of someone marking a single candidate as their first choice but then two candidates as their second choice. The first choice would count, but if that candidate was eliminated, the voter's second choice wouldn't be counted, and their ballot would be removed from the rest of the count. Ranking the same candidate in every position won't invalidate a ballot, but it has the same impact as just selecting a first choice and leaving the rest of the rankings blank. The voter's first choice is counted, but if that candidate is eliminated, their ballot is removed from the count. Yes. New York City's first major experience with ranked-choice voting in the 2021 mayoral primary was anything but smooth. Due in part to a quirk in state law, the city didn't report the results of any mail ballots until two weeks after the election. That state law has changed, so most of the mail results will be available on Election Night and then as part of the first tabulation a week after the election. The 2021 process was also marred by an error from the city board of elections which resulted in 135,000 test ballots being accidentally included in the ranked-choice tabulation. While the error was corrected and new results were released the next day, the incident resurfaced longstanding criticisms of the board. Vincent Ignizio, the deputy executive director of the city's board of elections, says he's confident that situation won't be repeated. 'We have implemented reforms that will prevent that this time around,' Ignizio said. 'We fully expect to run a fair and accurate election.' While ranked-choice voting is undoubtedly more complicated for voters who are used to just selecting one candidate per race, proponents say the system can both be more efficient and can lead to winning candidates who are more representative of the whole electorate. In a race with several strong contenders, the top candidate can often win with a relatively small percentage of the vote. In New Jersey's June 10 Democratic primary for governor, for example, Rep. Mikie Sherrill beat five competitors with about one-third of the vote. Ranked-choice voting eliminates the need to spend time and money on a separate runoff because it allows voters to express their top preference while also recording other candidates they'd like to support if their favorite is no longer an option. Some advocates also argue that ranked-choice voting can also lead to more positive campaigns. If Candidate A wants to win, the argument goes, that person needs the supporters of Candidate B to also rank them highly, and negative campaigning could turn off Candidate B's supporters. Opponents of ranked-choice voting argue that system is overly complicated and can lead to more rejected ballots and delayed and less transparent results. In a ranked-choice voting election, it's always better for voters to rank as many candidates as the rules allow to reduce the chance that their ballot is 'exhausted.' Critics argue this gives an advantage to voters who have more time and resources to learn about candidates and develop a long list of preferences. Amid the criticism, 17 states have banned the process in recent years, according to the conservative Stop Ranked-Choice Voting Coalition.
New York Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
What is NYC's ranked-choice voting system and how does it work?
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. Advertisement 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. Advertisement 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. Advertisement 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. 4 An example of a ranked choice ballot provided by the New York City Board of Elections. NYC Board of Elections 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. Advertisement 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. Advertisement 4 Eleven Democrats are running for mayor. Getty Images 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. Advertisement 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. Advertisement 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. 4 Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is running for mayor. Matthew McDermott Advertisement 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. 4 State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani hopes to stop Cuomo's political comeback. / MEGA 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. — Additional reporting by Nolan Hicks and Will Engel
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Eric Adams urges decision in criminal case ahead of election deadline
NEW YORK — With days left before a critical campaign deadline, New York City Mayor Eric Adams is urging a federal judge to toss his five-court bribery case so he can run unencumbered. His criminal defense attorney, Alex Spiro, penned a letter Monday to Judge Dale Ho saying Adams wants to proceed with his reelection bid without the criminal case hanging over his head. 'With the petition-filing deadline just days away, we respectfully urge the Court to issue its decision as soon as practicable,' Spiro wrote. He followed up with a timeline of the highlights of Adams' case, which culminated Sept. 26 with a federal indictment to which he pleaded not guilty. At issue is an April 3 deadline for candidates competing in the June 24 mayoral primaries to submit at least 3,750 signatures to the New York City Board of Elections. While Adams has shown few outward signs of operating a functioning campaign, he has said he is collecting requisite petitions. Adams' chances appear to be in serious doubt, as he trails former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the polls, has a 20 percent approval rating and was denied public matching funds of more than $4 million. Contributing to his popularity slump is his relationship with President Donald Trump, whose Department of Justice moved to dismiss the mayor's case in February, following months of overtures from Adams and his team. The interim prosecutor on the case, Danielle Sassoon, resigned in protest of what she called a quid pro quo over Adams' support for Trump's deportation agenda. Spiro has denied there was any deal between the mayor and the White House. Ho, who must sign off on the decision to drop the charges, brought in outside counsel last month to advise him on his options. That attorney, Paul Clement, suggested that Ho permanently nix the case — a deviation from the Trump administration's desire to toss the charges only temporarily, with an option to relitigate after the mayoral election in November. With three weeks passing since Clement's submission, Spiro cited the court's own logic of wanting to avoid any adverse electoral impacts in his plea for action. 'It's not in anyone's interest here for this to drag on,' Spiro quoted Ho as saying. Adams has suggested voters will be sympathetic to his cause once the charges are tossed. 'Our entire success in the city has been overshadowed by not only having over 230,000 migrants and asylum-seekers that were sent to our city, but also those bogus charges that my attorney has fought and even the current Department of Justice has pointed out how problematic they are,' he said during a radio interview Sunday evening. Voters might not be so easily swayed: Trump lost New York City by 38 points last year, and is particularly unpopular among Democrats.
Politico
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Politico
Eric Adams urges decision in criminal case ahead of election deadline
NEW YORK — With days left before a critical campaign deadline, New York City Mayor Eric Adams is urging a federal judge to toss his five-court bribery case so he can run unencumbered. His criminal defense attorney, Alex Spiro, penned a letter Monday to Judge Dale Ho saying Adams wants to proceed with his reelection bid without the criminal case hanging over his head. 'With the petition-filing deadline just days away, we respectfully urge the Court to issue its decision as soon as practicable,' Spiro wrote. He followed up with a timeline of the highlights of Adams' case, which culminated Sept. 26 with a federal indictment to which he pleaded not guilty . At issue is an April 3 deadline for candidates competing in the June 24 mayoral primaries to submit at least 3,750 signatures to the New York City Board of Elections. While Adams has shown few outward signs of operating a functioning campaign , he has said he is collecting requisite petitions. Adams' chances appear to be in serious doubt, as he trails former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the polls, has a 20 percent approval rating and was denied public matching funds of more than $4 million. Contributing to his popularity slump is his relationship with President Donald Trump, whose Department of Justice moved to dismiss the mayor's case in February, following months of overtures from Adams and his team. The interim prosecutor on the case, Danielle Sassoon, resigned in protest of what she called a quid pro quo over Adams' support for Trump's deportation agenda. Spiro has denied there was any deal between the mayor and the White House. Ho, who must sign off on the decision to drop the charges, brought in outside counsel last month to advise him on his options. That attorney, Paul Clement, suggested that Ho permanently nix the case — a deviation from the Trump administration's desire to toss the charges only temporarily, with an option to relitigate after the mayoral election in November. With three weeks passing since Clement's submission, Spiro cited the court's own logic of wanting to avoid any adverse electoral impacts in his plea for action. 'It's not in anyone's interest here for this to drag on,' Spiro quoted Ho as saying. Adams has suggested voters will be sympathetic to his cause once the charges are tossed. 'Our entire success in the city has been overshadowed by not only having over 230,000 migrants and asylum-seekers that were sent to our city, but also those bogus charges that my attorney has fought and even the current Department of Justice has pointed out how problematic they are,' he said during a radio interview Sunday evening. Voters might not be so easily swayed: Trump lost New York City by 38 points last year, and is particularly unpopular among Democrats.
New York Times
21-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Workers Say They Were Pressured to Pay for N.Y.C. Election Jobs
When a Republican employee of the New York City Board of Elections told a woman that if she paid $150, she could have a job working at the polls during local elections, the woman hesitated but eventually agreed. Unable to afford the fee on her own, she said she went to her husband, who gave her the money, even though he felt uneasy about the deal. The small payment, she said, seemed worth it for the chance to earn a few thousand dollars for election work. Poll workers in the Bronx say her experience was not unusual — and that it has been going on for years. The woman is among several election workers who say that Board of Elections staff members and officials of the Bronx Republican Party inappropriately pressured them into paying for jobs or that they saw their peers similarly pressured. Three people who paid for their positions spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing their jobs. Their stories follow a federal investigation that culminated in the indictment by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of a Board of Elections employee who was charged last August with extortion, bribery and fraud after federal prosecutors said she took kickbacks to place Bronx residents in temporary election jobs. The employee who was indicted, Nicole Torres, is expected to plead guilty in April after making a deal with prosecutors, court records show. Her lawyer, Amy Gallicchio, declined to comment. The workers who spoke with The New York Times said the scheme ran much deeper than the charges detailed in the indictment of Ms. Torres. Their accusations follow years of trouble inside the city's elections board, which has grappled with a host of problems including nepotism and sexual harassment. 'The agency has long suffered from a reputation for prioritizing favoritism over professionalism,' said Joanna Zdanys, deputy director of elections and government at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank focused on democracy and voting rights issues. If the accusations are true, she said, 'they're an affront to the city's voters and to the many Board of Elections workers who show up every day to serve them with integrity.' Ms. Zdanys said she was unaware of any similar allegations lodged elsewhere in the city. Poll workers in New York can earn about $2,750 each election cycle if they work all nine early-voting days plus Election Day. Elected district leaders in each borough, both Republicans and Democrats, get a say in assigning people to those roles. But poll workers in the Bronx described a pay-to-play scheme in which getting and keeping coveted jobs required contributing money and collecting signatures to help Republican candidates get on the ballot. Their payments — usually $150 apiece and sometimes several times in one election cycle — were recorded in state campaign finance records as donations to the Bronx Republican Party. The individual payments were modest, but the arrangement could undermine faith in the elections board and in elections more broadly, prosecutors and election experts say. Federal grand jury subpoenas sent last spring to a Bronx Republican Party member and a Board of Elections administrator suggest that prosecutors have investigated the possibility of a larger scheme. They sought information about how poll workers were selected, trained and placed at polls and any payments to and from them, a copy of the subpoena obtained by The Times showed. The subpoenas were served a few months before a federal grand jury voted to indict Ms. Torres, who was fired by the Board of Elections less than two months later. It has been nearly a year since the subpoenas were served, and no additional public charges have yet been brought. Ms. Torres, also a Republican district leader in the Bronx, took payments of about $150 apiece from Bronx residents — at least $36,000 in all — and funneled it into her personal bank account and to an unnamed Bronx organization, according to the indictment. A spokesman for the Board of Elections said investigators contacted their office about the case over the summer, and that the agency 'immediately' provided them access to Ms. Torres's workstation in the Bronx. 'We have not heard any additional information from anyone regarding this investigation since,' he wrote in an email. 'We would have no further comment on the matter as we wouldn't do so pending the outcome of their investigation.' The chairman of the Bronx Republican Party, Mike Rendino, declined to comment. When a reporter knocked on the door of his Long Island home, he threatened to call the police. The three workers interviewed by The Times said that when the city added early voting hours ahead of Election Day in 2019, it was a game changer. More days meant more money, but those shifts were tougher to come by, according to one worker. One poll worker said he was told by a fellow employee that if he wanted the gig, he had to talk to a Republican Party district leader. That official told him it would cost $170 — $20 to join the Bronx Republican Party and $150 for tickets to a fund-raising dinner, he said. The man said he paid the $170, but the fund-raising dinner was canceled because of the pandemic. He didn't get his money back; a Republican poll worker who had collected it told him to consider it a donation to the Republican Party that would help him get a job working the polls, he said. State campaign finance records showed that the man paid the Bronx Republican Party a total of $450 in 2021 in two installments. Later, he said a Republican district leader also asked him to collect signatures to help Republican candidates qualify to appear on election ballots. Still, he said he was not guaranteed a slot working every election cycle. The woman whose payments did get her a role in every election said Democratic poll workers warned her against paying the money. And when her district leader asked her to start recruiting others to pay, she said many refused. Staceyann Deleon and Charles Perkins, who have worked at poll sites in the Bronx for several years, both said they heard from fellow workers — Democrats and Republicans — about paying Ms. Torres, and other district leaders, for their jobs. John Perez, a former Democratic district leader in the Bronx, said he received complaints from several poll workers about it — and witnessed some arrangements firsthand. In some cases, he said, if prospective poll workers couldn't come up with the money up front, they were given loans that they had to pay back with interest. Another board employee who is also a longtime member of the Bronx Republican Party said her party dues rose to $150 from $25 when early voting was rolled out. Workers were told that paying their dues would give them 'preference' and 'priority' for election jobs, she said. Having been a party member for years, she was accustomed to paying fees and did not think much of it, given party leaders said the money would propel the party forward. It was not until she started hearing her peers told that they could not work if they did not pay that she questioned the arrangement, she said. Then, 'quiet whispers' grew to a roar when she said she learned that investigators raided the Board of Elections office in the Bronx last spring.
