NYC election shows perils of ranked-choice voting

Shawn Fleetwood writes for the Federalist about one lesson tied to New York City’s latest mayoral election.

New York City could be on the cusp of electing a radical Muslim socialist as its next mayor — even though he may not be voters’ first choice.

On Tuesday, electors in the Big Apple will head to the polls to cast ballots in the city’s Democrat mayoral primary. With incumbent Mayor Eric Adams set to run as an independent this fall, competition for the Democrat nomination has remained close between two candidates: former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.

While Cuomo — who oversaw New York’s deadly Covid-era nursing home scandal — is generally considered to be the frontrunner in the race, a seemingly rising Mamdani could be propelled to victory thanks to the city’s ranked-choice voting system.

According to the New York Post, a new Emerson College poll found, “In its hypothetical initial round of voting, Cuomo’s lead shrinks to 3 percentage points, with 35% of likely Democratic voters supporting him compared to 32% for Mamdani and 13% for city Comptroller Brad Lander.” Because no candidate garnered more than 50 percent of the vote, the report noted, “the ranked choice system kicks in,” resulting in Mamdani “finally surpass[ing] Cuomo in the eighth round of the simulated ranked choice voting — 51.8% to 48.2%.” …

… Should the results of Emerson’s survey prove to be accurate, it’s possible that a plurality of NYC Democrat primary voters could select Cuomo as their first choice, only to then end up with Mamdani as their nominated candidate due to ranked-choice voting. Such a potential outcome demonstrates the pitfalls of the RCV system, in which voters’ first choice candidate is not always the one who ultimately receives their votes.

RCV has been shown to result in inaccurate election results and high quantities of discarded ballots.

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