Common Cause/NY Responds to NYC Council Charter Recommendations

NEW YORK, NY (04/23/2019) (readMedia)-- Today, the NYC Council Charter Commission released its preliminary recommendations for the November ballot. Placing ranked choice voting before the voters in November is among the recommendations.

In response to the recommendations, Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause/NY issued the following statement:

"Common Cause/NY is thrilled that the staff of the NYC Council Charter Commision has included ranked choice voting in its preliminary recommendations. Ranked choice voting is a common sense election reform that helps community-based candidates win, creates consensus, and eliminates the winner-take-all mentality. But voters need it for every office, not just city-wide positions. We look forward to working with the Commission to make sure the final proposal placed before the voters in November gives New Yorkers the opportunity to gain the full advantages of ranked choice voting."

Ranked choice voting allows voters to express their preferences for a variety of candidates by ranking their first five choices.

The NYC Council Charter Commission will host boroughwide hearings throughout the end of April and early May beginning at 6pm. They are:

• April 30 at the Jamaica Performing Arts Center
• May 2 at Brooklyn Borough Hall
• May 7 at Lehman College
• May 8 at NYC City Hall
• May 14 at the College of Staten Island

Background

Ranked choice voting allows voters to express their preferences for a variety of candidates by ranking their first five choices. If on election day when all the first-choices are counted there is one candidate who collects a majority of the vote, that candidate wins. If there's no majority, then the last-place candidate is eliminated and their votes re-allocated according to voter preferences. The process is repeated until there's a majority winner. The groups' proposal would implement Ranked Choice Voting for all NYC primary and special elections, including races for city council and citywide offices.

Other cities like San Francisco, Minneapolis and Santa Fe, have implemented ranked choice voting to revolutionize the way candidates campaign.

In the last three election cycles in New York City, sixty-three percent of multi-candidate primaries were won with less than 50% of the vote, 30% were won with less than 40%, and nearly 10% were won with less than 30%. In 2021, the incumbents will be term-limited in approximately 70% of the City Council, all five borough presidencies, as well as the offices of the controller and the mayor. That means over 200 candidates will be competing over open seats.

Ranked choice voting also helps change the composition of what our government looks like. According to a study done by Fair Vote, in the four Bay Area cities that use ranked choice voting, candidates of color have won 62% of those races, as compared to only 38% prior.

In early April, Common Cause/NY also launched a website and released a new analysis that builds on a previous report -- The Case for Ranked Choice Voting in New York City -- which quantifies the prevalence of multi-candidate primaries in the last three election cycles in NYC. The study found:

• Over the last three election cycles, there average number of candidates ranged from 4 to 5.
• Over the last three election cycles, less than 15% of multi-candidate primaries with 4 or more candidates produced majority support winners.
• In 2013, the last primary election cycle with a wave of open seats, no race with 4 or more candidates produced a majority support winner.