Brooks-Powers holds narrow lead in SE Queens council race
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Selvena Brooks-Powers. Campaign photo
By David Brand
New York City’s first test of ranked-choice voting has arrived.
With nearly all machine votes counted, Selvena Brooks-Powers maintains a narrow lead over Pesach Osina in the nine-candidate race for an open city council seat in Southeast Queens-Far Rockaway’s Council District 31.
Brooks-Powers, an official at the JFK Redevelopment program, received just over 38 percent of the vote, compared to 35 percent for Osina. They are separated by 206 ballots.
If neither candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote after absentee and affidavit ballots are tabulated, the last place finished will be eliminated and voters who picked that candidate will have their second choice tallied. That process will continue until one candidate receives a majority.
In a statement, Brooks-Powers stopped short of declaring victory but said she expected to attain an electoral majority.
“I am truly humbled by the support we have received, and we’re confident that once every vote has been counted, I will be the next councilwoman,” she said. “While there was substantial confusion about Ranked Choice Voting, these early results are promising and I look forward to all of the votes being counted.”
Osina, a former Queens borough director in the city comptroller’s office, said it was too early for a candidate to claim the seat.
“We ran a great campaign and the numbers are still coming in,” he said. “There are still plenty of ballots left. We have to wait for all the ballots to be counted.”
Osina finished second in a 2013 special election for Council District 31 and was buoyed this time around by strong turnout among the district’s sizable Orthodox Jewish community. About two-thirds of early votes were cast at a middle school in the heart of the predominantly Jewish section of Far Rockaway.
The 2013 special election, won by Donovan Richards, is frequently cited by ranked-choice voting proponents to justify the need for the new format. Richards defeated Osina by 79 votes after getting under 30 percent of the total. Brooks-Powers finished fifth in that race.
The seat opened in December 2020 when Richards was sworn-in as Queens borough president.
The election will not go to voters’ second choices until all absentee ballots are tallied. Absentee ballots will count toward the vote total as long as they were postmarked by Feb. 23, Election Day.
A spokesperson for the Board of Elections said 2,094 absentee ballots were sent to voters. The BOE received 374 absentee ballots as of Tuesday.
In addition, up to 100 affidavit ballots were cast Tuesday, according to a person familiar with voter information from the Board of Elections.
Several candidates said they planned to rank their rivals, but only Manny Silva, currently in third place, listed his entire ballot.
One candidate, deputy superintendent Shawn Rux, coordinated with Osina to encourage voters to rank one first and the other second, according to people familiar with their campaigns. Rux is currently in sixth place with 2.75 percent of the vote.
Latoya Benjamin, an economic development director for State Sen. James Sanders, is in fourth place with about 5 percent of the vote. Rev. Sherwyn James, a Democratic district leader, is in fifth place with 4.35 percent.
Business owner Nancy Martinez is in seventh, educator Latanya Collins is in eighth and business consultant Nicole Lee is in ninth.
