By Gary Tilzer
Last Week while the media was celebrating that the city found a vendor who would automatically count the Rank Choice Voting (RCV) rounds without delays, the Jewish Voice warned on June 13th to Expect Most of the Primary Vote Counting to End in Court, in Confusion, & in Distrust, Months after primary day.
The Jewish Voice was warning that most of the ballot would be having to be handled by hand counts as mandated by the state’s election law. The delays by the hand-count and the confusion with court involvement we warned would create havoc with the Democratic Primary. A week after the Jewish Voice warning about vote count problems on June 19th a Daily News editorial wrote: “Count the complexities: New York laws aren’t ready for ranked-choice voting.” Which stated the NYC election law was not ready for RCV.
The Daily News which supported Ranked-choice voting, urged New Yorkers to adopt by referendum in 2019 and pushed back on challenges against in 2020, is in full flower in 2021. The Daily News now blames the state election law with not keeping up with the Rank Choice Voting (RCV) change. Their editorial board states there are two statutes on the books which do not mesh with our new way of choosing our leaders. Problems may arise.
The Daily News wrote, “One of the laws is itself brand new, an important reform requiring hand counts of paper ballots in very-close contests. The city Board of Elections has wisely had such a rule since the replacement of the old lever machines for paper ballots with computerized scanners in 2010. The law mandates a full hand count when the margin of victory is 20 votes or less, or 0.5% or less. Clearly that applies to the final round of ranked counting between the last two competitors. And that hand count would have to be of all the ballots for all rounds. But there is also a fair argument that it should also apply to each of the 5 rounds, say even the first if the candidate being dropped is within 20 votes of the next person.”
The second problem according to the Daily News editorial board: “Candidates may want to file a court action with the courts, but here again, state law is also out of whack, for it says any legal proceeding “shall be instituted within 10 days after the holding of such primary.” The slow-moving board could take three weeks to count. By the time someone finds out a lawsuit is needed, the law may have told them to get lost.”
In the Jewish Voice story we stated that it is difficult in liberal NYC to look at the accuracy of the election counting process after Trump’s charges in the 2020 election. There is a great possibility this year for winners and losers to be inaccurately determined and declared by a state or federal court.
In the Past, Judges were the Problem for Some Independent Democratic Candidates:
NEW YORK; STEALING AN ELECTION–NY Times 1982. Someone is trying to steal an election in Brooklyn and so far, they are getting away with it. The judge who issued the initial ruling in the case was either confused or something worse; he abdicated all responsibility for determining which side was to blame for the voting irregularities and he chose to ignore crucial evidence that would have helped him reach such a finding. Instead, he threw out the results and ordered a new election for next Tuesday, which benefits the loser in the original vote, Vander L. Beatty, the man to whom the evidence seems to point. Someone is trying to steal an election in Brooklyn and so far, they are getting away with it.” The court of appeals cancelled the lower courts orders for a special election and Major Owens became the congressman.
Therefore, before we start the most difficult vote count in NYC history that could easily go wrong and be attacked as undemocratic, we should consider the history of NY vote counting, including recounting of votes by hand.
Jewish Voice: Warned That Early Voting Turn-Out Weak
Early this week the Jewish Voice wrote: “Your Vote Can Be the Deciding Vote in the Mayoral Primary Next Tuesday . . . As of Wednesday Only 138,000 Voted” Update Complete Early Voting 9 day Turnout 191,197 5%.
The weather forecast calls for rain on Tuesday, which will reduce voter turnout expected on primary day. If the vote is very low expect a lot of surprise winners.
On Sunday, June 20th the NY Times wrote: N.Y.C. Is Emerging From a Crisis. Will Voters Show Up? So far, turnout for local primary elections has been low. Historically, this has not been the case in challenging times:
The 1977 race marked one of the four occasions during the past half-century that Democratic mayoral primaries in New York drew more than one million voters. No matter how much New Yorkers lay claim to liberal values, political obsession, and locavore consumer habits, they do not turn out in enormous numbers for actual local elections. Early-voting and absentee ballot data for the primaries on Tuesday — which should effectively elect the next mayor, city comptroller, Manhattan district attorney and numerous members of the City Council — have not suggested a distinct surge of the kind this fraught and consequential moment would demand.
More Jewish Voice Stories About RCV: Will Rank Choice Voting Confusion Give the Opportunity to Lobbyists to Fully Control the City Council?
