The polls are closed. But the top contenders may have a long, anxious wait for accurate results in New York City’s mayoral primary, the first citywide election to use ranked choice voting.
Several candidates in the race to succeed Mayor Bill de Blasio have the potential to make history if elected. The city could get its first female mayor, its first Asian American mayor or its second Black mayor, depending on who comes out on top.
It could be July before a winner emerges due to the ranked voting system and pile of absentee still at least a week from being counted.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a former police captain who co-founded a leadership group for Black officers, led in several recent polls. But he was closely trailed by former city sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia and former de Blasio administration lawyer Maya Wiley, with former presidential candidate Andrew Yang also in pursuit.
After polls closed at 9 pm, New York City’s Board of Elections planned to release partial results of votes cast in person, but that initial picture could be misleading because it will only include data on who candidates ranked as their first choice.
The ranked choice system, approved for use in New York City primaries and special elections by referendum in 2019, allowed voters to rank up to five candidates on their ballot.
Vote tabulation is then done in computerized rounds, with the person in last place getting eliminated each round, and ballots cast for that person getting redistributed to the surviving candidates based on voter rankings. That process continues until only two candidates are left. The one with the most votes wins.
It won’t be until 29 June that the Board of Elections performs a tally of those votes using the new system. It won’t include any absentee ballots in its analysis until 6 July.
More than 87,000 absentee ballots had been received by the city as of Monday, with more expected to arrive.
Besides Adams, Garcia, Wiley and Yang, other contenders in the Democratic contest include City Comptroller Scott Stringer, former US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire and nonprofit executive Dianne Morales.
De Blasio, a Democrat, leaves office at the end of the year due to term limits.
In the Republican primary, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa faced off against businessman Fernando Mateo. Because there were only two candidates in that race, ranked choice voting won’t be a factor.
Concern over a rise in shootings during the pandemic has dominated the mayoral campaign in recent months, even as the candidates have wrestled with demands from the left for more police reform.
Adams, a former officer, may have benefited most from the policing debate.
Of the top contenders, either Garcia or Wiley would be city’s first female mayor if elected. Adams or Wiley would be the second Black mayor. Yang would be the city’s first Asian-American mayor.