Up for the count

On Nov. 5 — actually, before then, since early voting is now the law here — New Yorkers will get to say yay or nay to five potential changes to the City Charter, which is Gotham’s foundational legal document. We hereby give our blessing to the most important of those reforms: ranked-choice voting for local primaries and special elections.

The way municipal office elections work now is that voters go to the polls in June to choose who will be the standard-bearer for their party. Since this is almost exclusively a one-party town, those primaries are decisive. Turnout is typically low; just one in five Democrats showed up in 2013; in 2009, just 12% did.

In primaries for mayor, controller or public advocate, winning candidates must get above a 40% legal threshold. If not, the top two finishers advance to a runoff, where turnout is inevitably even more pitiful; in 2009’s, just 10% of eligible voters turned out.

In primaries for borough president and Council and in special elections — like the clown-car 17 candidate contest picking a new public advocate earlier this year — there’s no 40% threshold. The top finisher wins, even if that candidate winds up with 13% of 5% turnout.

A better way is on the ballot, called ranked-choice or instant-runoff voting. Voters don’t pick just one candidate; they can rank up to five choices, in order. If nobody in an all-comers primary gets 40%, the counters look to the second-place votes of the losing candidates, redistributing those to the top two contenders.

The result includes more voters’ preferences, encourages turnout and, at least in theory, fosters a more constructive style of campaigning.

Last year, we scoffed at this Charter Revision Commission, doubting they’d produce anything useful. We were wrong. It happens.