Get ready for ranked-choice voting

Ester R. Fuchs is a professor of International and Public Affairs and Political Science at Columbia University and the director of WhosOnTheBallot.org. Nicholas P. Stabile serves as an advisor to Rank the Vote, and as counsel to the New York City 2019 Charter Revision Commission. Photo courtesy of Fuchs

By Prof. Ester R. Fuchs and Nicholas P. Stabile

It's time for New York City voters to get familiar with ranked-choice voting (RCV). And if you live in City Council District 24 in Queens and plan to vote in the special election to fill Rory Lancman’s vacant Council seat, it is really time to focus. Council District 24 voters will be voting in New York City’s first ranked-choice election. Whether you are voting absentee, voting early (January 23–January 31) or voting on special election day (February 2), you are going to find something new on the ballot. Rather than choosing one candidate that you would like to see win, you will be asked to rank up to five candidates on the ballot by your preference.

As you contemplate ranked-choice voting, you might very well be thinking – how did RCV happen in New York? How does RCV really work? Why does it seem so complicated? Are there any advantages to RCV? And, will the candidate who receives the most votes win? 

New York is not the first place to adopt RCV. Ranked-choice voting is currently being used in such diverse places as Alaska, Maine, San Francisco, and Minneapolis. Importantly, New Yorkers elected to use ranked-choice voting by approving a November 2019 ballot measure. It passed with 73.5% support, with a start date of 2021. RCV is not a surprise change in the voting rules promulgated by the New York City Board of Elections to frustrate and confuse voters or benefit candidates from any particular group. Rather, New Yorkers chose RCV with overwhelming support for primaries and special elections for Mayor, Public Advocate, Comptroller, Borough President, and City Council. We will not, however, use RCV for federal and state offices, such as President, Congress, Governor, or District Attorney. 

Under the new rules, RCV will be used this year in Council District 24 special election, followed by three special elections in February and March to fill vacant City Council seats in Brooklyn and Queens. All of this leads up to the primary elections on June 22, 2021 for Mayor, Comptroller, Public Advocate, the five Borough Presidents, and dozens of City Council members.

Here’s how ranked-choice voting works in New York City: 

Voters can rank up to five candidates in order of preference—first choice, second choice, third choice, fourth choice, and fifth choice—instead of voting for just one candidate. In the Council District 24 race there are eight candidates. You can only rank five. Ranking other candidates does not harm your first choice, and you can still vote for just one candidate if you prefer.

To determine the winner of the election, we add up all the first-choice votes for each candidate. If one candidate receives more than 50% of the first-choice votes, they win the election outright. 

But if no candidate gets more than 50% of the first-choice votes, then counting continues in rounds. In each round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and the votes for that candidate are transferred to the next-highest ranked candidate on each ballot. 

So, if your first-choice candidate is eliminated because it had the fewest votes, your vote is transferred to your second-choice candidate. And if your second choice is then eliminated in the next round, your vote is transferred to your third choice, and so on. In other words, in each round, your vote will count once, and it will count for the highest-ranked candidate on your ballot that is still viable and has not been eliminated, whether that’s your first choice or your fifth choice.  

This process continues until only two candidates remain. The candidate with the most votes in this final matchup wins the election.  

There are definite benefits to ranked-choice voting compared to the plurality and runoff system we previously used in New York’s local elections, especially in races where there are three or more candidates. 

Ranked-choice voting gives you more say in who gets elected and reduces wasted votes. Previously, in plurality elections with three or more candidates—like the eight-candidate special election for City Council District 24—a candidate could be elected with less than 50% of the vote. In fact, in the 2013 primaries for City Council—the last election with a majority of non-incumbents running—there were 23 races with three or more candidates. In those races, 16 candidates won their primary elections with less than 50% of the vote, and 2 candidates won with just 24.3% and 26.8% of the vote, respectively. With ranked-choice voting, even if your first-choice candidate does not win, you can still help choose the winner by ranking other candidates your second, third, fourth, and fifth choices. 

Ranked-choice voting also leads to more civility and less negative campaigning, as shown by studies of ranked-choice elections in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Cambridge, Massachusetts.  This is because candidates are encouraged to build broader coalitions of voters, as candidates who are not your top choice still will likely need your support to win.

Moreover, ranked-choice voting leads to more diverse and representative candidates running in and winning elections. Cities that have implemented RCV, such as San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland have elected more women and more women of color, making their elected officials more representative of their communities. Indeed, of the eight candidates running to replace Rory Lancman in the special election for City Council District 24, four are women of color and three are men of color. 

In citywide offices, ranked-choice voting eliminates the need for costly, low-turnout runoff elections for citywide offices for Mayor, Comptroller, and Public Advocate. Under the prior system, if no candidate received 40% of the vote in the primary, a runoff between the top two candidates would be held four weeks later, requiring voters to return to the polls a second time to determine the winner. Not only did these runoff elections cost the City millions of dollars, historically there has been a significant drop off in turnout.  

Ranked-choice voting simply gives each of us a greater voice in our democracy, and we expect it will increase voter turnout, too. We both grew up and went to school in Queens, so we know that Queens voters can show the rest of the City that ranked-choice voting works.

If you want to learn more before you vote, visit WhosOnTheBallot.org and the New York City Campaign Finance Board websites. 

Ester R. Fuchs is a Professor of International and Public Affairs and Political Science at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, the director the Urban and Social Policy Program, and the director of WhosOnTheBallot.org. 
Nicholas P. Stabile serves as an advisor to Rank the Vote, and he served as Counsel to the New York City 2019 Charter Revision Commission, where he designed and drafted the City’s ranked-choice voting law.