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Salaam a bigger winner after NYC elections board posts 1st ranked-choice primary tallies
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Jul 5, 2023
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Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for Stonyfield
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Jul 5, 2023
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Counting up results from June’s primary appears to have been a straightforward affair based on the first set of results released on Wednesday by the New York City Board of Elections, which handed a bigger win to Yusef Salaam in a closely watched Council race in Harlem and helped project likely victors in primary contests in Queens and the Bronx.
City elections officials conducted ranked-choice tallies in just three races after last week’s primary election results showed most candidates — including all incumbents except one — received more than 50% of the votes on the first ballot.
When the board conducts a ranked-choice tally, the candidates with the fewest votes are eliminated. The board then looks at whom voters picked as their second choice, and the ballots are transferred to that candidate. The process continues in rounds until only two candidates remain, and the candidate with the most votes wins.
Former City Councilmember Tony Avella is on pace to win the Democratic nomination in the 19th City Council district in northeast Queens with 51.1% of the vote, according to the new unofficial results.
His closest challenger, Christopher Bae, trails by more than 2 points, or just 123 votes. That means Avella will likely take on Republican incumbent Vickie Paladino in the general election in November.
Elections officials still conducted a ranked tally in the race for Harlem’s 9th City Council district, even though newcomer Yusef Salaam declared victory over his opponents on primary night. Salaam, who is one of the exonerated Central Park Five, served nearly seven years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Councilmember Kristin Richardson Jordan had opted not to run for re-election in the district.
Salaam, whose candidacy got a boost from Keith Wright, a former assemblymember and the current Manhattan Democratic party chair, finished just over the 50% mark on primary night, even though he commanded a 25-point lead over his closest challenger, Assemblymember Inez Dickens. But the lead dropped below 50% of the vote after the board received additional ballots.
Following the latest count, Salaam walked away with an even larger win capturing nearly 64% of the vote after the tallies eliminated Assemblymember Al Taylor and Richardson Jordan, whose names were still on the ballot. The ranked tally showed Salaam besting Assemblymember Inez Dickens by nearly 28 points, or 3,031 votes.
“This is a victory for justice, dignity and decency for the Harlem community we love. It’s a victory in support of not turning our backs on those in need, for saying we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers and for saying the only way for all of us to thrive is to believe in the promise we all have,” Salaam said in a statement after the results were posted. “We are going to have a new Harlem Renaissance.”
The only other race that required a ranked-choice tally was in the Republican primary for the 13th City Council nomination in the Bronx, which stretches from Throgs Neck to Pelham Bay Gardens.
Kristy Marmorato held a 3-point lead over George Havranek on primary night. After the ranked-choice tally, her lead held and she managed to pick up 51.5% of vote, with just 56 votes ahead of Havranek.
Marmorato also won the Conservative Party nomination, so she'll be on the November ballot no matter what and will face incumbent Democrat Marjorie Velázquez.
In the 42nd Council District, which includes East New York, Remsen Village and Starrett City in Brooklyn, incumbent Councilmember Charles Barron narrowly lost to Christopher Banks, a nonprofit leader who had run previously for elected office and has served as member of the local community board. Banks maintained a lead of more than 50% with additional ballots, so that race never went through a ranked tally and elimination process.
Banks holds a 497-vote lead over Barron, the long-serving Brooklyn elected official who has represented the area in the City Council and the state Assembly since 2001. Barron acknowledged his loss in an interview with the New York Daily News last week, saying that he did not expect that a ranked-choice tally would change the results in his favor.
The ranked-choice voting system was adopted by voters in 2019 and has been used in primary and special elections for city offices, like the City Council, since 2021. In the first citywide contest using ranked-choice voting that year, the Board of Elections issued erroneous results after the first round of ranked tallies, triggering public blowback and changes to the agency's internal controls.
The board is expected to conduct an additional ranked-choice tally next Tuesday, when all the ballots are finalized. The agency could still receive a small number of ballots from voters who need to correct an error that was eligible under the state’s so-called cure process to be fixed before the election is certified.
While those ballots are unlikely to change any race results, the last day the Board can receive cure-eligible ballots is July 17. The agency is not expected to certify election results before that date.
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new york city
Politics
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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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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