FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM FEBRUARY 25, 2021 • THE QUEENS COURIER 21
Too close to call
City Council District 31 special election will be fi rst
NYC race decided by ranked-choice voting
BY JACOB KAYE
AND CLARISSA SOSSIN
editorial@qns.com
@QNS
Th e city’s fi rst true test of ranked-choice
voting began to take shape Tuesday, Feb.
23, as results from the special election in
City Council District 31 began to trickle
in.
Th ough Selvena Brooks-Powers currently
leads the count as of Wednesday
morning, Feb. 24, as it currently stands,
none of the nine candidates in the race –
Brooks-Powers, Nancy Martinez, LaToya
Benjamin, Latanya Collins, Sherwyn
James, Nicole Lee, Pesach Osina, Shawn
Rux or Manuel Silva – have secured more
than 50 percent of the vote, triggering a
ranked-choice voting recount.
Brooks-Powers secured 38 percent of
the vote (2,613 votes), with 97 percent of
scanners reported as of Wednesday morning,
while Osina is close behind with 35
percent of the vote (2,406 votes), according
to unoffi cial results from the city’s
Board of Elections. Silva is the only other
candidate to have received more than
10 percent of the vote (10.1 percent, 694
votes).
Th e candidate with the fewest votes,
which at this time appears to be Lee, will
be eliminated and the second round of
counting will begin in the coming weeks.
Th e approximately 60 voters who selected
Lee as their fi rst choice will see their ballots
go to the candidate they marked as
their second choice. Th e new totals will be
counted and the process will repeat itself
until a candidate surpasses the 50 percent
threshold.
“I want to thank all those who voted
today and participated in our democracy,
and I want to thank all of my supporters
who made this possible. I am a daughter
of southeast Queens, and the momentum
and support for my candidacy has
been so empowering,” Brooks-Powers
said Tuesday night. “While there was substantial
confusion about ranked-choice
voting, these early results are promising
and I look forward to all of the votes
being counted. Our community deserves
to have a fi ghter in City Hall to ensure we
can recover from this pandemic and fi nally
get our fair share. Today we have completed
the campaign for the special election,
and now we must move forward,
complete the counting and make sure
every voice is heard.”
During a Zoom party aft er the polls
closed Tuesday night, Brooks-Powers
expressed confi dence that she would be
named the winner of the election.
“I’m so excited at the fact that I am
going to be elected into the City Council
and I feel humbled, I feel blessed and I
feel appreciative,” she said, adding that she
will “wait through this process for all the
votes to be counted.”
Osina, who fi nished second in the special
election to fi ll the seat in 2013, when
he lost by fewer than 100 votes, again
found himself in second place Tuesday
night. However, unlike in 2013, Osina
could see himself bounce back in the
race once the second round of counting
is completed.
“We’re watching the returns and we feel
we’ve run a great campaign and we await
the fi nal results,” Osina said in a statement
Tuesday night.
Th e winner of the Feb. 23 special election
will unlikely be determined anytime
soon, as the city’s Board of Elections won’t
begin the next count until they’ve received
all absentee and military ballots. Only
then will the second round of counting
begin, a process that will be open to the
public to watch.
Th ough Tuesday’s election is not the
fi rst in the city’s history to utilize the new
voting system – that distinction goes to
the special election in District 24 – it is the
fi rst to go into the second count.
City Councilman James Gennaro
received around 60 percent of the vote
during the District 24 special election
on Feb. 2, negating the need for a second
round of counting. Th e results of the race
were certifi ed on Feb. 18 and Gennaro
was sworn in to the seat he held from
2001 until 2013 that same day.
Candidates in both Tuesday’s election
and the Feb. 2 election in District 24,
expressed concerns over the extent to
which the public has been informed about
the new system.
Brooks-Powers noted that she heard the
two Queens races referred to as “guinea
pigs,” a term she found alarming.
“I fi nd that problematic, obviously,”
Brooks-Powers told QNS before the polls
closed Tuesday. “Th ese are races that will
impact the day-to-day quality of life of
hundreds of thousands of people.”
Th e entire city will utilize ranked-choice
voting during the June primary elections,
which will feature a large slate of candidates
for mayor, comptroller, public advocate
and more than 110 candidates for
City Council in Queens alone.
Turnout in Tuesday’s election was relatively
low, with around 7,000 ballots cast
in-person and around 1,700 cast early,
accounting for around 7 percent of the
approximately 102,580 registered voters
in the City Council district.
However, voters will get a second and
third shot at voting for a council member
in the district this year.
Th e winner of the special election
will serve until the end of 2021, when
Richards’ council term was set to end. A
primary election in June – likely to feature
many, if not all of the candidates who
ran in Tuesday’s election – and a general
election in November will send a council
member to the seat to serve until 2023.
Th e race for District 31, which covers
parts of Arverne, Brookville, Edgemere,
Far Rockaway, Laurelton, Rosedale and
Springfi eld Gardens, was fi rst triggered
when Richards, who has served the district
in the council since 2013, won the
special election for Queens borough president.
Photo by Gabriele Holtermann
Selvena Brooks-Powers casts her ballot at Pilgrim Church in Arverne on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021.
Photo courtesy of Brooks-Powers’ campaign
Selvena Brooks-Powers
Photo courtesy of Osina’s campaign
Pesach Osina
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