A new tally of votes shrunk Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams’ lead shrink considerably after rising to first place last Tuesday in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary.
Adams took first place last week after the city took part in the first ranked-choice voting (RCV):
With 82 percent of the results in, Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, was the first choice of 31.6 percent of those who voted in person on Tuesday or during the early voting period, as New Yorkers chose a leader to steer the city’s reopening and economic recovery.—Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, was in second with 22.3 percent; Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, was in third with 19.7 percent. Either would become the city’s first female mayor.
The RCV allows voters to rank five candidates by preference. If no candidate receives 50% of the votes in the first round then “the winner must be decided by examining voters’ secondary choices.” Absentee ballots are also counted so the candidates might not know until mid-July the winner of the primary.
A new tally of RCV votes gives the candidates some suspicious numbers:
So now Adams leads Garcia by 15,908 after her YUGE jump.
Adams is not thrilled.
“The vote total just released by the Board of Elections is 100,000-plus more than the total announced on election night, raising serious questions,” stated Adams’ campaign. “We have asked the Board of Election to explain such a massive increase and other irregularities before we comment on the Ranked Choice Voting projection. We remain confident that Eric Adams will be the next mayor of New York because he put together a historic five-borough working class coalition of New Yorkers to make our city a safer, fairer, more affordable place.”
Should Adams have concerns? From the New York Times (emphasis mine):
According to the tabulation released Tuesday, Ms. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, nearly made it to the final round. She netted 29.3 percent of the vote, just 4,000 votes behind Ms. Garcia, before being eliminated in the 10th round.The release of Ms. Wiley’s supporters heavily benefited Ms. Garcia in the final tally; either candidate would be New York’s first female mayor, and Ms. Wiley would be the city’s first Black female mayor.Half of Ms. Wiley’s votes went to Ms. Garcia, 19 percent went to Mr. Adams, and the remainder was not allocated to either.Ms. Wiley ran well to the left of Ms. Garcia on a number of vital policy matters, including around policing and on some education questions. But Mr. Adams, a former police captain and a relative moderate on several key issues, is a non-starter for many deeply progressive voters who may have preferred Ms. Garcia and her technocratic focus on competence.
I don’t understand how Garcia jumped to second place. The progressives should have picked Wiley as their second choice, right? That’d be like me, a libertarian, choosing AOC as my second choice. It does not make sense.
UPDATED AT 8PM ET: The Board of Elections responded while I ate dinner. They are not helping themselves.
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