The outcomes of two competitive primary races that concluded with recounts are expected to be certified on Tuesday, the city Board of Elections said.
The city’s Board of Elections released updated preliminary votes counts Tuesday—now including absentee ballots—which show the Brooklyn Borough President leading over former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia with 50.5 percent of votes after eight elimination rounds of Ranked Choice Voting.
Officials were “trying to satisfy expectations of quick results with a new way of voting,” BOE’s deputy executive director said of the botched ballot count.
The latest unofficial count—which had yet to include more than 124,000 absentee ballots—showed former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia gaining on front runner Eric Adams, though the BOE later said there was a discrepancy in the tally. The final results in the mayoral race aren’t expected for another couple of weeks.
‘For me it’s not about choice—I know who I want to vote for and I voted for them,’ one voter told City Limits Tuesday. Other said they like RCV, and that it prompted them do more research about the candidates than they normally would.
“When voters voted for ranked-choice voting, we voted for it with the understanding that there’d be two years of city-wide education, which never came,” said Christian Amato, who has been polling Bronx residents on their awareness of the ranked-choice system.
The list includes influential incumbents like Land Use Chair Rafael Salamanca and Manhattan Councilmember Carlina Rivera, as well as a few prominent figures trying to claim their first public office and a couple of relative unknowns, who have raised a ton of cash in a short amount of time.
The competition is especially hot, if civil, in Brooklyn’s 39th City Council District, one of the most politically-active areas in the city, with some of the highest voter turnout rates, and the home district of Mayor Bill de Blasio, who represented the district before being elected Public Advocate then mayor.
In central Queens’ City Council District 20, which spans Flushing, Murray Hill, and Queensboro Hill there is a crowded and competitive Democratic primary race. The candidates face an onslaught of contentious issues such as anti-Asian hate crime, rezoning of the Flushing waterfront, a busway in downtown Flushing’s Main Street, and small business struggles.
The longtime Council member from Harlem surprised observers by running for reelection.
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