The rank attacks on ranked-choice voting

New York City’s party bosses have historically served as gatekeepers, handpicking their loyalists for political office while routinely locking out first-time or progressive leftwing candidates, especially when they’re women of color and LGBTQ folks. We’re told our communities aren’t ready for our type of leadership, or to get in line, in an attempt to bully us out of standing up for those same communities.

With ranked-choice voting, scheduled to come to local elections next year, we have an opportunity to transform the way politics in our city works. Not surprisingly, party bosses are fighting it. A handful of councilmembers — represented by the longtime lawyer for the Brooklyn Democratic machine — are suing to delay RCV by essentially arguing it will disenfranchise Black and Brown New Yorkers because we don’t understand it. That’s not only a lie, but a bad faith attempt to weaponize race to undermine democracy.

Let’s be real: This is the same machine that banks on low voter turnout to maintain power. And ranked-choice voting is one of many tools that can encourage wider public participation

While they have the time and money for lawsuits, we have the people power to problem-solve the issue at hand. Just like we mobilized to vote absentee in record numbers and held census outreach efforts in our districts — all in the middle of a pandemic — progressive candidates are throwing down now and mobilizing to meet the moment. From the week of Jan. 24-31, many of us are committing to voter education events throughout our districts in a RCV Week of Action. It’s our job, and the job of our representatives, to put in the time to educate New Yorkers.

We have the skills, we have the momentum, and it’s what New Yorkers — who voted overwhelmingly to approve RCV in 2019 with nearly 75% of the vote — want.

That includes historically Black and Latino communities across the city, like in Southeast Queens, Central Brooklyn and the South Bronx, which voted 75%-85% in support of ranked-choice voting. Seeking to invalidate the results of a decisive, free and fair election because you disagree with the result is a transparent tactic to disempower the will of the people.

And it’s offensive to hear the argument that Black and Brown voters will not be able to understand RCV. Black voters, and Black women in particular, are the backbone of our democracy. We vote in higher numbers than any other racial group, and we effectively organize our communities to make historic change.

It’s Black women in Georgia who flipped the state blue for the first time in nearly 20 years in the middle of a pandemic. Assuming that we won’t understand how to rank our top five favorite candidates is insulting.

We rank things daily in our life. It’s instinctual. Search online and you’ll find top-ten lists of everything under the sun.

Once people rank candidates on their ballot for the first time, they get it. A 2004 San Francisco State University exit survey found that after RCV was first implemented, 87% of voters said they understood the system “well,” 61% said they preferred RCV to the old system, and 69% said they knew how to rank candidates even before coming to vote.

Incidentally, San Francisco implemented an education plan four months before the first RCV election. We have more than six months to do it here in New York. So, let’s go!

What’s especially ironic about the coordinated attack on ranked-choice voting in New York City is that cities with rankedchoice voting have seen significant gains for candidates of color. In Minneapolis, Councilman Phillipe Cunningham, who is Black, became the first openly trans man to be elected to public office in the entire country, after ousting a longtime white incumbent. Other studies conducted in California found major gains for people of color, increasing representation in majority-minority districts by 17%, multi-ethnic districts by 24%, and white-majority districts by 9%. It’s hard to deny the profound and positive impacts RCV has on elections. It will eliminate the spoiler effect — meaning multiple candidates of color can run for the same seat and not worry about “stealing” votes from one another. More of us can get our voices out there. More of us can have a seat at the table. That’s why machine candidates oppose it: When more people get involved, their power diminishes. The fact is, New Yorkers are ready to rank. It’s time for the City Council to pass Councilwoman Alicka Ampry-Samuel’s bill to provide a citywide education program so more New Yorkers know what to expect when they go to the polls next year. Let’s help ranked-choice voting work as well as it possibly can, not undermine it from the start.