New York City Voters will go to the Polls in June and select Not just their Favorite Candidate but their upto Five Favorite Candidates, Ranked in there Order of Preference under the New Ranked-Choice-Voting (RCV).
Currently 40 People who have Declared that they are Running for Mayor of New York, from Front-Runners like: former Presidental Candidate Andrew Yang; current Comptroller Scott Stringer; current Borough President of Brooklyn, Eric Adams; to Paperboy Prince, a Rapper who wants to Legalize Psychedelics in the City and, at a recent Mayoral Forum, tossed a Pie into his own Face to raise Awareness about food Insecurity.
Only about 11 of them, however, are likely to make the Ballot, although that could Change as Term-Limited Mayor de Blasio (D) and Governor Cuomo (D) face Pressure to Suspend the Usual Signature-Gathering Requirements in the wake of the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Here are some likely 2021 New York City Contenders, in Alphabetical Order.
Eric Adams: Brooklyn Borough President
Shaun Donovan: Senior Strategist to the President of Harvard University. Previous Jobs: Budget Director for President Barack Obama, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, New York City Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner under Bloomberg.
Kathryn Garcia: New York City Sanitation Commissioner under Mayor Bill de Blasio. Previous Jobs: COVID-19 Food Czar, Interim Chair of NYCHA, COO of the Department of Environmental Protection.
Zach Iscol: Founder and CEO of Grid North Group, a Digital Media Company. Previous Jobs: Deputy Director of the Javits Medical Center, Co-Founder and Chair of the Headstrong Project, Officer in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Ray McGuire: Vice Chair, Citigroup, Previous Jobs: Global Co-Head of Mergers and Acquisitions at Morgan Stanley, Mergers and Acquisitions at Merrill Lynch.
Carlos Menchaca: New York City Council Member (D-Brooklyn, 38th District). Previous Jobs: LGBT and HIV Community Liaison to Former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Budget Coordinator to former Brooklyn Borough President, Marty Markowitz.
Dianne Morales: Executive Director and CEO of Phipps Neighborhoods, a Social Services Nonprofit. Previous Jobs: Executive Director of The Door, Chief of Operations and Implementation at the New York City Department of Education.
Scott Stringer: New York City Comptroller. Previous Jobs: Manhattan Borough President, State Assembly Member.
Loree Sutton: New York City Veterans’ Services Commissioner. Previous Jobs: Brigadier General in the U.S. Army, Psychiatrist.
Maya Wiley: Senior Vice President of Social Justice and Professor of Urban Policy at The New School. Previous Jobs: MSNBC Legal Analyst, Civilian Complaint Review Board Chair, Counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Andrew Yang: Founder of Humanity Forward, a Nonprofit Promoting a Universal Basic Income. Previous Jobs: Democratic Presidential Candidate, Founder and CEO of Venture for America, CEO of Manhattan Prep.
While there is concern that some Voters will be Confused by any New kind of Ballot, and that few People actually have a Fourth or Fifth Preference for Mayor, in a recent Special City Council Election in Queens, the First time RCV was tried in the City, there were Stories of Many Voters leaving the Bottom Four Slots on their Ballots Blank.
Some Insiders predict that the Majority of Voters will do the Same in the Mayor’s Race, the Big point of Confusion is what happens after all the Vote is in. To win, a Candidate needs 50% of the Vote. RCV is often described as Creating Rounds of Voting, while requiring Voters to go to the Polls only Once, with Candidates falling away after each New Count until a Winner is Declared.
In the Fist RCV Queens Special Elections Results from the First Round:
James F. Gennaro: Queens Strong Party, 3379 Votes, 59.79%
Moumita Ahmed: Mo For The People Party, 882 Votes, 15.61%
Soma S. Syed: Soma for Queens Party, 481, 8.51%
Deepti Sharma: A Better Queens Party, 282, 4.99%
Dilip Nath: Your Voice Matters Party, 248, 4.39%
Neeta Jain: Community First Party, 175, 3.10%
Mujib U. Rahman: Unity Party, 123, 2.18%
Michael Earl Brown: United Citizens Party, 74, 1.31%
WRITE-IN: 7, 0.12%
If this seems needlessly Complicated, the Previous way of doing things wasn’t exactly Ideal either. Under the Old system, if No One got above 40%, there was a Runoff Election a few Weeks after the Primary between the Top-Two Vote-Getters, and that Second Round tended to have Extremely Low Turnout with a Large Cost to Run. In that situation, though, the Candidates at the End at least knew whom they were Competing against and which Voters they needed to Target.
RCV is supposed to Force Candidates to Campaign in every Part of the City, since they will need to be the Second or Third Choice of Voters they could have Written-Off before. It gives Voters a Reason to Stop Strategically a Single Vote.
New Yorkers can Vote as First Preference for a Cause Candidate who they Favor, but be Secure in the Knowledge that their Vote will Not be “Wasted.” Hence, as we have seen, a Lot more Candidates enter in RCV Fields.
A Predominant School of Thought holds that RCV is going to Benefit Andrew Yang simply based on his Name Identification, that most Voters won’t be Familiar enough with the other Candidates to know whom to put further down on their Ballots. Because of this, Yang has been getting the Bulk of the Incoming Flak from the Rest of the Field in an attempt to Disqualify him among the swath of the Voters who aren’t Certified members of the Yang Gang. “I think you are going to see people start making the case that Andrew Yang is uniquely unqualified to hold the job and would be a disaster at it, so that even if he gets all of his first-place votes, he doesn’t pick up any more along the way,” said One Strategist.
A Main Argument for RCV is that it’s supposed to make Campaigns more Civil, since Votes are No Longer a Zero-Sum Game. To some extent, Strategists say, that has been True. Besides the Attacks on Yang, most of the Negative Campaigning has been through “no fingerprints” Oppo Research dumped in the Press, such as Revelations that former Citi Executive Ray McGuire served as a Banker to the Koch Brothers, or that Eric Adams went on Junkets to Azerbaijan, or that Yang once told an Ohio Woman during his Presidential Campaign that he was trying to Escape New York too.
It is not far-fetched to consider a Scenario where Second-Place Votes play a Determinative Role. Most campaigns believe that any Tipping Point like that would come Not from the Candidates who are Eliminated First but from Candidates in the Middle of the Pack, those who are bopping along with 10% or 15% of the Vote. Being the Second-Place Choice of a Disproportionate Share of Mid-Tier Ballots could be Enough to Nudge a First-Tier Candidate Over-the-Top in a Close Race. If the Race looks like it will come down to Two People, those Two are likely to Attack each Other as Viciously as in the Campaigns of Old, after all, neither will be Eligible for the Other’s Second-Place Votes.
Few Voters will come to the Polls with a Preference beyond their First or Second Choice.
Will Unions and Democratic Clubs, Rabbis and Reverends, Announce Not just that this is my Candidate, but here is how the whole Rest of how your Ballot should look?
Journalists Hate RCV because it is a Hard Story to Tell. But this is an Election in which Most Voters will have No Clue what is going on. It is the Summer during a Pandemic, a lot of People could be Out-of-Town. The usual Political Strategy gets More Complicated, and Institutional Players become even more Important because No one knows what is going on.
But it is going to be Wild to Watch.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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