Cured by democracy
COURIER L 36 IFE, DECEMBER 11-17, 2020
OPINION
Last year, if I may help you
recall such distant times,
voters overwhelmingly
approved a charter revision
to implement Ranked Choice
Voting (RCV) in New York
City primary elections.
Ranked choice voting is,
in essence, an instant runoff.
That means you don’t just
vote for one candidate in each
election but indicate a priority
among the candidates. So,
if a candidate wins a majority
of votes in the fi rst tally, that
candidate is the winner. However,
if no candidate wins a
majority, the person with the
fewest votes is eliminated, and
the second-choice of those voters
would receive their votes.
The process continues until
there is one candidate who has
received more than 50 percent
of the votes.
A perceived benefi t of RCV,
as seen in places where it has
already been implemented,
is that it forces candidates to
craft a platform and persona
that can appeal suffi ciently to
a broad range of voters. Those
majoritarian requirements
end up discouraging the negative
campaigning that may
hurt an opponent but make the
opponent’s backers unlikely
to make the naysayer a second
choice. It also allows expressing
your true preference
for an unlikely choice without
feeling that you are throwing
away your vote.
Well, if you didn’t immediately
understand all that,
you’re not alone. Last month,
most of the Council’s Black,
Latino and Asian Caucus sent
a letter to Council Speaker
Corey Johnson seeking to delay
its implementation due to
likely voter confusion. This
week, the City Council held a
hearing on the matter. As I am
writing, news broke that six
New York City Council members
fi led a lawsuit stating that
that the Board of Elections and
its Campaign Finance Board
had violated the law by failing
to adequately explain the
software that will be used to
tabulate the votes and by failing
to conduct a suffi cient public
education campaign to familiarize
voters with the new
system. For that reason, the
RCV voting system should not
be implemented yet, as it will
amount to the disenfranchisement
of voters.
These are legitimate concerns
as we don’t want to disenfranchise
anyone, and it’s understandable
that in the time
of COVID-19, people haven’t
been overly worried about the
2021 mayoral election. However,
we also don’t want to
make a habit of overruling
something three-quarters of
voters citywide supported last
November. Remember the uproar
when we changed the referendum
rules for Mayor Michael
Bloomberg?
A better alternative would
be to move the primary election
date, now scheduled for
June, on a one-time basis back
to September, which had been
the traditional primary date.
This calendar shift would
allow more time to review the
software and for voter education
on RCV while also preserving
the clear will of voters
who supported RCV last year.
It also would allow — assuming
there is a wide distribution
of the COVD-19 vaccines
— for a bit of “normal” in-person
campaigning. This would,
in turn, enable more voter education
as to who is running
for offi ce instead of just fi nding
out about them from local
news, virtual meetings, forums,
and candidate mailers.
Unfortunately, moving the
primary date isn’t even under
the city’s purview and would
require state legislation.
When this remedy occurred
to me, I was able to speak to
someone who just won an election
during a pandemic, state
Senator-elect Jabari Brisport.
I was encouraged because he
thought it was a good idea
and made the point that September
would allow teachers,
such as himself, to campaign
when school is not in session.
I never get my hopes up
when it comes to Albany taking
swift action. However, the
legislature is getting younger
and more agile with each
election cycle. I think adjusting
the election calendar to
avoid overruling voters and
enabling greater voter education
would appeal to them.
It would be a step towards a
more inclusive democracy
and, as the late Governor Al
Smith said, “All the ills of
democracy can be cured by
more democracy.”
Mike Racioppo is the District
Manager of Community
Board 6. Follow him on
Twitter @RacioppoMike.
MIKE DROP
Mike Racioppo
The ‘silly season’
The silly season has begun,
six months and two weeks
where lots of lies are told
— all because this city is starting
to pick its next mayor.
I think the two most likely
candidates for mayor have each
been planning their campaign
for literal decades: Comptroller
Scott Stringer and Brooklyn
Borough President Eric
Adams. In previous elections
they would be preparing for a
runoff, but now they’re planning
to outlast the other candidates
in the ranked choice primary.
More on that later.
Maya Wiley and Ray
McGuire are both highly compelling
African-Americans
(Wiley is mixed-race) who
have never before held elective
offi ce and just a few years ago
were not planning to be mayor.
I think they have more crossover
appeal than the other candidates,
and either could win.
Wiley worked for her
Brownstone Brooklyn neighbor
Bill de Blasio and has been
less critical of the mayor than
the other candidates; McGuire,
a former executive at Citigroup
and a top art collector,
announced his campaign last
week in a video directed by
Spike Lee.
Shaun Donovan and Kathryn
Garcia both have lots of
city government experience
and announced their candidacies
this week, but they will
likely struggle with fundraising
more than the wealthy
McGuire or Wiley, who is wellknown
from TV.
Former presidential candidate
Andrew Yang and soon-tobe
former congressman Max
Rose both might run, whereas
it looks like former Council
Speaker Christine Quinn will
not. Each would be in the top
nine candidates but not the top
four.
Nonprofi t executive Dianne
Morales and city Councilmember
Carlos Menchaca
are also running. I think both
will struggle with fundraising
even more than Garcia does,
especially Carlos.
Two veterans, Loree Sutton
and Zach Iscol, are also
running, as are many others.
I think virtually all of us will
only be hearing about them
rarely.
Six Black councilmembers
are also suing to stop
ranked choice voting, which
was passed by voters 75-25 last
year, because they believe the
new system — where you list
up to fi ve candidates you like
in order, and after the candidates
with fewer votes are
dropped, their votes are redistributed
to stronger candidates
— will confuse voters of color.
In every case, their constituents
voted for this measure by
at least two-to-one.
Here in Brooklyn, we’ve
had our own silly season. The
county Democratic Party
needed to fi ll unelected vacancies
to its county committee
before its offi cial meeting. This
was done under cover of new
rules approved to add gendernonconforming
individuals to
party leadership, but the motivation
was clear: “We need all
the County Committee members
we can get, to overcome
these expletive progressives,”
former County Chair Frank
Seddio was recorded saying.
So if you were wondering
why current County Chair
Rodneyse Bichotte felt compelled
to publish an op-ed in
this paper this week, that’s
why.
The silly season never really
begins or ends.
Nick Rizzo is a former Democratic
District Leader and a
political consultant who lives
in Greenpoint. Follow him on
Twitter @NickRizzo.
WORDS OF
RIZZDOM
Nick Rizzo