![]() Within a day of the election, Eric Adams was firmly in the lead. Other doubters ventured that voters would not be able to handle ranking voters and would default to choosing the candidate with the highest name recognition. Skeptics on the Right imagined voters might rank outrageous or protest candidates first, putting a crank in City Hall. Critics on the Left suggested that ranked-choice voting would work against the interests of minorities and reward a white candidate in a majority-minority city. The delay would foment voter disbelief, they proffered. Some critics feared voters would be left in the lurch for weeks with no clue who won. Many observers, especially on the political Right, were wary of the adoption of ranked-choice voting. By eliminating the most unpopular candidates and transferring their voters’ preferences until one candidate hits the 50% mark, ranked-choice voting aims to reward the most generally acceptable candidate. If none of them reach the 50% threshold, the lowest-scoring candidate is eliminated, and his or her second-rank votes get added to the vote tallies of the others. If any candidate gets 50% or more first-rank votes, he or she wins. It empowers each voter to rank five candidates. Current Mayor Bill de Blasio, for example, won a mere 40% of the Democratic primary voters in 2018. All too often, that system produced mayors who were not especially popular. Under the old system of voting, each primary voter had one vote to cast for one mayoral candidate. ![]() The Big Apple switched to ranked-choice voting in 2019, a change that was approved by voters by a 3-to-1 margin.
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