14 THE QUEENS COURIER • JANUARY 28, 2021 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Van Bramer announces bid for borough president
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
aacevedo@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Long Island City Councilman
Jimmy Van Bramer has thrown
his hat in the ring for Queens
borough president once again.
Th e longtime City Council
member announced his bid for the
offi ce on Jan. 19, with a campaign
video and a few endorsements.
“We have a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to reimagine a city
where working New Yorkers get
ahead. Families across Queens
are struggling to pay rent and put
food on the table, now more than
ever, we need leadership willing
to challenge the status quo,”
Van Bramer said. “I’ve spent
my life taking on power, and I
know we can transform our politics
together. It’s time to fi nally
put small businesses ahead
of big corporations that put
profi ts before people. Prioritize
aff ordable housing over big real
estate. Reimagine public safety
and pour our resources into a
new economy, rather than bailouts
for billionaires. Th at’s why
I’m running for Queens borough
president, and with your help, we
can make the world a more just
and fair place for us all.”
Van Bramer, who is term-limited
in his current position as
councilman of District 26, ran
for Queens borough president in
last year’s special election, which
was held aft er former Queens
Borough President Melinda
Katz assumed the role of district
attorney. He ended his campaign
before the primary, however, citing
personal reasons.
Donovan Richards, former
councilman for District 31, went
on to win the primary and general
election, and assumed the
role of Queens borough president
in December 2020.
Queens residents will head
back to the polls to vote on their
borough president again in the
Democratic primary on June
22 and general election on Nov.
2. Th ere are currently fi ve candidates,
including Van Bramer,
running for the offi ce this year:
Richards, Diana Sanchez, Stan
Morse and Danniel Maio.
Van Bramer, who was born
and raised in Astoria, positions
himself as the “only candidate
for Queens borough president
to reject real estate donations,
oppose the city’s mega-jails plan
to replace Rikers Island and lead
the fi ght against Amazon’s plan
for a taxpayer subsidized HQ2.”
He’s a vocal advocate of reducing
the NYPD’s budget by at
least $1 billion and reallocating
those funds to incarceration
alternatives, placing a moratorium
on luxury development and
creating more aff ordable housing,
building a network of protected
bike lane across Queens,
creating more public hospitals
and building a new, communitydriven
land use process.
Van Bramer was fi rst elected to
New York City Council in 2009,
and is a founding member of the
Council’s progressive caucus.
He worked for the Queens
Public Library for 11 years,
and continued organizing with
LGBTQ groups and others seeking
to take “big money out of
politics.” He then ran for offi ce
against the Queens County
Democratic Party once before
winning the 2009 election for
City Council District 26.
Queens College hosts forum on ranked-choice voting
BY CARLOTTA MOHAMED
cmohamed@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Queens residents in City
Council District 24 will make
history as they will be the fi rst
voters ever to use the new
ranked-choice voting (RCV) system
in the city’s fi rst special election
this year on Feb. 2.
To educate voters about RCV
and their voting rights, Queens
College on Jan. 14 hosted a community
and ethnic roundtable
discussion on RCV.
Queens College President
Frank Wu was joined by J. Phillip
Th ompson, deputy mayor of
Strategic Policy Initiatives; James
Vacca, distinguished lecturer
of Urban Studies at Queens
College; Laura Wood, senior
adviser and general counsel
of Democracy NYC; and Dr.
Sarah Sayeed, chair and executive
director of NYC Civic
Engagement Commission.
Th e college, located at 65-30
Kissena Blvd. in Flushing, will
serve once again as a polling site,
so people could exercise their
rights and fulfi ll their responsibilities,
according to Wu.
“It’s important that everyone in
the community is fully informed
and understands how rankedchoice
voting works, especially
in light of the imminent municipal
elections, we all need to
encourage voter awareness and
voter participation,” Wu said.
“Now, more than ever, we’re
hosting this function because it’s
the mission of Queens College
to prepare students to become
leading citizens of an increasingly
global society.”
With RCV, voters will have
the option to rank fi ve candidates
from the group of eight
candidates. While RCV is the
new current system of choice,
many voters, particularly those
in immigrant communities, may
not understand how to vote for
their candidate of choice in the
upcoming special election.
So, what is rankedchoice
voting, and
how does it work?
In November 2019, New York
City voters approved a measure
to enact RCV for local primary
and special elections beginning
in 2021. Th is made NYC
the most populous jurisdiction
in the U.S. to employ the RCV
voting election method.
RCV is an electoral system in
which voters can rank up to fi ve
candidates — fi rst, second, third,
fourth and fi ft h — by preference
on their ballot.
For example, if you like
Candidate A the best, but you
also like Candidate B and to a
lesser extent Candidate C, you
can rank Candidate A as your
fi rst choice, Candidate B as your
second and Candidate C as your
third. You don’t have to rank all
fi ve; you can choose just one
candidate.
But the option is there for voters
to voice their support for multiple
candidates. For the voter, all
they have to think about when
going to the ballot box is which
candidates to choose and how to
rank them.
If a candidate wins a majority
of fi rst-preference votes, he
or she is declared the winner. If
no candidate wins a majority of
fi rst-preference votes, the candidate
with the fewest fi rst-preference
votes is eliminated.
First-preference votes cast for
the failed candidate are eliminated,
lift ing the second-preference
choices indicated on those
ballots. A new tally is conducted
to determine whether any
candidate has won a majority of
the adjusted votes. Th e process is
repeated until a candidate wins
an outright majority.
One thing that voters cannot
do is vote for two candidates
for their fi rst preference; doing
so would invalidate the ballot.
Also, since absentee ballots will
need to be counted, the winner
might not be announced on election
night.
“Even if your fi rst choice
doesn’t win, one of your other
choices might win,” Th ompson
said.
According to Th ompson, RCV
improves voters’ chances of having
their voices heard on policy
issues they care about. It also
means that candidates’ cycles
will focus more on the issues
and less on specifi c candidates,
which is good for all voters, particularly
in citywide or countywide
elections.
Primary elections that will
have RCV include mayor, public
advocate, comptroller, borough
president and City Council.
Primary elections that will not
have RCV include the president,
governor, Congress, state
Legislature and district attorney.
However, for the general election
in November, voters will
only vote for one candidate, as
they’ve done in the past.
Questions have been raised
about why the city is moving
toward RCV and one of the facts
is that the new system will eliminate
runoff elections for mayor,
city comptroller or public advocate,
where there has been low
voter turnout in the past.
“Unlike the old system where
candidates could win with just
a small plurality of votes in
some cases with RCV, candidates
must have an outright
majority to win,” Wood said.
“One of the hopes I think of
supporters of ranked-choice
voting is that it will help ensure
that candidates put together
a broader coalition of voters,
because again, candidates
will need voters beyond the
fi rst choice in order to put that
coalition together to win.”
For information about rankedchoice
voting, and to see who
is running and learn how and
where to cast your ballot, visit
voting.nyc. For more information
on your voting rights, go to Th e
New York City Civic Engagement’s
election information site at nyc.
gov/wearevoters.
politics
Photo by Angélica Acevedo/QNS)
Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer
Photo by Dean Moses
/WWW.QNS.COM
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