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1 Day Out: What to Expect in New York City's Ranked Choice Voting Elections

 |  | Will Mantell | [email protected]

June 23, 2025 – Tomorrow, New York City voters will use ranked choice voting in their local primaries for the third time. In addition to the Democratic mayoral primary, there are 19 Democratic and Republican primary elections with three or more candidates on the ballot. Ranked choice voting has already had an impact on campaigns up and down the ballot.

FairVote has studied ranked choice voting elections since 1992 and offers the below analysis and resources as you cover the election. Ranked choice voting and New York City experts available for interviews include: 

  • Deb Otis, Director of Research and Policy at FairVote
  • David Daley, Senior Fellow at FairVote and author of Ratf**ed: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count
  • Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause New York. Common Cause/NY led the ballot initiative campaign for ranked choice voting in New York City and subsequent education and implementation efforts; they are your local experts.

New York City voters like and understand ranked choice voting (RCV)

  • In 2021, a Common Cause NY/Edison Research exit poll found that 95% of voters said the RCV ballot was simple to complete, and 77% said they wanted to continue using RCV. 87% of voters ranked two or more candidates in the Democratic mayoral primary. 
  • The city elected its first majority-female city council, and an ideologically diverse range of citywide officials and city council members. 
  • The largest cities in seven states use RCV to elect their city councils and mayors, including New York City. 

Campaigns are better with ranked choice voting. More candidates and organizations are taking advantage of RCV in 2025, running more positive campaigns or making “cross-endorsements” 

  • With RCV, voters are able to express support for several candidates. This encourages candidates to demonstrate areas of common ground with their opponents, in order to earn second and third choices from voters ranking those rivals first.  
  • Candidates for the same seat have also campaigned together, instead of tearing each other down. Mayoral candidates Brad Lander and Zohran Mamdani have cross-endorsed, as have Mamdani and Michael Blake; Lander and Zellnor Myrie did a joint Instagram post together. Mamdani released a video asking voters to donate to another mayoral candidate, Adrienne Adams – a kind of collaboration that’s almost impossible to imagine in a single-choice election.
  • Many local unions, organizations, and elected officials have endorsed multiple candidates.

Ranked choice voting gives voters a wide range of choices, rather than candidates being forced to drop out of the race 

  • In RCV elections, more candidates can run without playing “spoiler” or splitting the vote with ideologically or demographically similar candidates. In single-choice elections, candidates are often pushed out of the race for fear that they’ll split their community’s vote. 
  • With RCV, voters can rank their preferences without fear of wasting their vote or playing spoiler – and know that if their first choice can’t win, their vote will simply count for their backup choice. 

Ranked choice voting elects majority winners. It benefits consensus-building candidates who engage with the system, not any ideology

  • Ranked choice voting is completely party- and ideology-neutral, and candidates across the political spectrum have won RCV elections. 
  • To win, candidates must build a majority coalition– which includes both deep (1st-choice) and broad (backup-choice) support. Candidates are rewarded for making positive connections with more voters, even if it’s as those voters’ 2nd or 3rd choice. 
  • Previously, candidates for City Council could be elected with small pluralities. Races for citywide offices would go to expensive, low-turnout runoffs if nobody got over 40%. 
  • There is extensive evidence that voters follow candidate cues on how to complete their RCV ballot, and candidates help both themselves and their supporters if they encourage voters to rank multiple candidates. 

New York will release only first-choice results on election night, and release preliminary RCV results on Tuesday, July 1

  • The timeline is set by the NYC Board of Elections – which chooses to wait until all absentee ballots are received before running their RCV count. Nationally, the best practice is to report preliminary RCV results as soon as possible; most cities report preliminary RCV results within 24 hours. The actual tabulation takes just seconds. 
  • When it comes to results timing, the most important thing is whether a race is close and whether there are late-arriving ballots. Prior to RCV, New Yorkers waited three weeks for any election that went to a runoff (if no candidate won 40% of the vote). Voters had to go to the polls a second time, and candidates had to campaign for three more weeks.

Additional Resources: 

Ranked choice voting is one of the fastest-growing voting reforms in the nation, and has now grown to over 50 states, counties, and cities reaching 17 million Americans across the nation. It is used in the largest cities in seven states, and nationwide in Ireland and Australia. 

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FairVote is a nonpartisan organization seeking better elections for all. We research and advance voting reforms that make democracy more functional and representative for every American.