What You Need to Know About Ranked-Choice Voting
The 2021 NYC primaries run June 12–22.
If you’ve been keeping up with the NYC elections, then you know that the Democratic primary, which starts today and ends on June 22nd, is an electoral experiment that will be closely watched by election enthusiasts everywhere.
On the other hand, if, like me, you’ve been distracted by everything else happening in the world and haven’t been keeping up, then you might be wondering: what’s going on?
Well, for the first time, NYC is introducing ranked-choice voting in races for several offices, including mayor, city council, public advocate, borough president, and comptroller. NYC will be one of few cities — and the largest in the U.S.— to implement ranked-choice voting, and both advocates and critics are waiting to see how it pans out at such a scale.
This brings us to our first need-to-know:
What is ranked-choice voting?
Unlike traditional single-choice elections, also known as “first past the post” elections, ranked-choice voting (or RCV) allows voters to rank their preferences rather than having to choose one candidate out of an often crowded field. In single-choice elections, the candidate with the greatest percentage of votes wins, even if they receive less than a majority of the votes (known as a plurality). However, in RCV elections, the votes are tallied in stages, according to voters’ preferences, until a candidate receives above 50%.
Why ranked-choice voting?
RCV enthusiasts say RCV is a better way to reflect majority preferences when more than two candidates compete. They argue that RCV will encourage new voters to participate because it eliminates spoilers (candidates who take votes away from a stronger candidate with similar platforms), encourages less negative campaigning and less strategic voting (in which voters choose a candidate they think has a better shot over their preferred candidate so that their vote gets counted), and eliminates the need for tedious run-off elections that force voters to turn out twice.
New York is, theoretically, a one-party system, where Democrats in most places are heavily favored in the general…
