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It's Primary Day: Here's when we'll know the results of NYC's elections
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Jun 27, 2023
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By
Brigid Bergin
Published Jun 27, 2023
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Polls are open in four of the five boroughs today for the city’s Primary Day elections. Registered Democrats, Republicans — and in the case of one City Council district in the Bronx, Conservatives — can cast their ballots until 9 p.m.
But while the voting part is pretty straightforward, getting results and figuring out who won will be a little more complicated.
This evening, the New York City Board of Elections will publish what are called unofficial election night returns. Those results will include ballots cast during the nine days of early voting and a bulk of the absentee ballots received ahead of Primary Day, along with the votes cast on machines during today’s election.
Turnout in non-presidential primaries tends to be low and this election is no exception.
So far, just over 44,000 of the approximately 2.5 million eligible primary voters cast a ballot during early voting, according to city election officials. That’s less than 2% turnout.
When polls will close, there will be no ranked-choice tallies on election night. Since 2021, primaries and special elections in New York City have been conducted using ranked-choice voting, which allows a voter to select up to five candidates in order of preference.
“What we are going to do is run raw numbers on Tuesday night, which is like any other election, so people can go right onto our website and watch those results,” said Vincent Ignizio, the deputy executive director of the city Board of Elections.
When the results of the first choice selections are tallied, if no candidate receives more than 50%of the vote, then the candidate with the fewest number of votes is eliminated. Those ballots are then transferred to the candidate the voter selected as their second choice. That counting process continues until there is a winner. But those ranked-choice tallies will not begin immediately.
So if margins are tight, don’t expect any clear cut winners for a few days.
A week and a day after the primary, the election officials will run the first first round of ranked-choice tallies. Those tallies would normally take place exactly seven days after the election but since that falls on the July 4 holiday, the first ranked-choice tally will be on July 5.
If needed, additional ranked-choice tallies would take place weekly, on July 11 and July 18.
The election night results will not include absentee ballots received after Saturday June 24, which could make it especially hard to declare a winner in races where the votes are close. There are also affidavit ballots received during early voting and on Primary Day that will not be counted yet. A voter completes an affidavit ballot and inserts it into an affidavit envelope, as opposed to scanning it through a voting machine, because their name does not appear in the electronic pollbook.
Additional absentee ballots can be received up to a week after Primary Day as long as they are postmarked June 27 or earlier. Ballots that do not have a postmark but arrive via the post office the day after the election, June 28, will still be counted.
There is also a process available for absentee and affidavit ballots that allows a voter to correct a mistake that might otherwise disqualify their vote, like a missing signature or date. The curing process requires election workers to contact the voter and then the voter has a set amount of time to correct the error. For ballots that need to be fixed after the election, a voter has seven days after the Board of Elections notifies them about the error.
For those who might complain about how long it takes to get results, Ignizio said simply, “It's better to get the election results right than it is to get the election results expeditiously.”
Recent history shows how damaging vote counting mistakes can be.
During the 2021 mayoral primary, the agency published erroneous ranked-choice results that included 135,000 test ballots that had not been cleared from voting machines used to tabulate the results.
Ignizio, who joined the city Board of Elections after the mayoral election, said the agency has made personnel and process changes since then.
Because the primary contests for district attorney in the Bronx and Queens are not ranked-choice contests, candidates may have an easier time declaring victory on primary night if their margin of votes they hold over their closest competitor is wide enough. The same holds true for judicial contests and races for party positions. The only thing that will change about their vote tally is more ballots will be added as additional votes are received by the city Board of Elections.
Election officials will post the number of absentee ballots it mailed out and received back every three days starting on Primary Day. The last day they can accept absentee ballots is July 5 (the deadline is extended by one day to accommodate the federal July 4 holiday).
That information may help candidates and their campaigns determine if there are enough outstanding ballots to shift the outcome of a race, or if they can comfortably declare victory.
The earliest results can be certified is June 17, which is currently the last day election officials can receive a fixed or “cured” ballot.
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Brigid Bergin
Brigid Bergin is an award-winning senior reporter on the People and Power desk. She is fiercely committed to telling stories that help people engage and support democracy. In 2022, she hosted a live, ten-week call-in politics show ahead of the midterm elections called The People's Guide to Power. Brigid's reporting in 2017 included some of the first coverage of a political newcomer now known as AOC. In 2016, she broke the news of a voter purge in Brooklyn just days before New York’s presidential primary, triggering city, state and federal investigations. Brigid also guest hosts The Brian Lehrer Show and All Of It. She graduated from the University at Albany and the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-723-4719.
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