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NYC Begins Ranked-Choice Ballot Tally In Queens
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Mar 17, 2021
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Brigid Bergin / Gothamist
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Mar 17, 2021
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In office space tucked into the hulking Metro Mall in Middle Village, dozens of Board of Elections employees, candidates, and observers made history Tuesday as they began to hand count ballots cast in the BOE's first election to require multiple rounds of counting under the new ranked-choice voting system. (This is the second time New York City has adopted a form of RCV, the first was in the 1930s.)
The additional tallies were triggered when no one candidate received more than 50% of the vote in the February 23rd special election for the 31st City Council district in Queens. Selvena Brooks-Powers led in the nine-candidate contest with just over 38% of the vote, followed by Pesach Osina who trailed her by only 207 votes.
The scene was reminiscent of the recount process that took place in the exact same spot in the summer of 2019, when just over 50 votes separated Melinda Katz and Tiffany Caban in the Democratic primary for Queens District Attorney. But this time, with COVID-19 still a public health threat, there were far fewer people in the room and everyone was wearing a mask. Also, this is a temporary arrangement: the manual counting that will determine the winner in this race should be replaced by an automated counting system for the citywide primary elections in June.
For now, the 7,451 ballots cast in this race go through three basic steps. Ballots start at a “staging table” where they are counted by Election District, then they move to a “canvass table” where the votes are recorded and then the ballots are put into bins labeled with the candidates names.
“Once once we've established the totals for round one, for the first choice, then we'll determine which candidate gets eliminated,” said Bart Haggerty, the deputy chief clerk for the Queens Board of Elections. “The candidate who receives the least number of votes at the end of the round is eliminated in the subsequent round, and their ballots are then reapplied for the next available choice.”
Haggerty expected the whole process would take two to four days. Dawn Sandow, the deputy executive director of the New York City Board of Elections, said she expected the election results for this contest to be certified by the end of the week.
READ MORE: Ranked-Choice Voting Is Here, So Be Prepared
Among the observers present to watch the BOE conduct its first ranked-choice-vote count was Susan Lerner, executive director of the voting rights group Common Cause NY, one of the organizations that supported the 2019 charter referendum that established the new system for electing city officials.
“It's logical and orderly and it also allows the Board of Elections staff to gain a deep understanding of the ranked-choice voting process in a way that running software does not,” Lerner said, observing the manual count on Tuesday.
The city plans to use tabulation software that will speed the counting process for the June 22nd primary, but it is currently being tested and certified by the State Board of Elections. In meantime, the BOE is relying on a manual count as its official result for ranked-choice voting contests, while also running the software as a test.
The only candidate in the room Tuesday morning was Pesach Osina, joined by his attorney Ali Najmi, who said it was important to be there for his client.
“I definitely wanted to be here for the process, to observe it, to monitor it and to see how it's being done, to make sure that everything goes smoothly,” said Najmi, “And I am happy to report that it seems to be going very smoothly.”
Tagged
queens
election 2021
ranked choice voting
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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