Inside The Chaotic New York Mayoral Race

New York adopted the most idiotic election procedure imaginable.  As a consequence, the denizens of the Big Apple will not know who they elected mayor for a couple more weeks — thanks to what is called “Ranked Choice” voting.

While Democrats allege that Republican voting laws in the several states will produce voter suppression by confusing voters with changes in the laws and procedures, the New York Ranked Choice system has already done it in the Big Apple.  It is state-of-the-art confusion … suppression.  Maybe that explains the low turnout.

The way Ranked Choice voting works is that every voter can select five candidates – ranking them in the order of preference.  The first round of counting will reveal a person in the lead, but not necessarily the eventual winner.  That will have to wait until votes for second choice are reassigned according to the rules – which are complicated to say the least.

They also have more votes to count – the mail-in variety.  Most observers say that there will not be a confirmed winner until the first or second week in July.  This makes no sense whatsoever.  It is virtually impossible to believe that any group of legislators could conceive or implement this nonsense.

Yes, election laws and rules change constantly – and there is a variety of unique systems.  Illinois once had a system in which there would be two Republicans and two Democrats on the ballot for the state House.  Voters could vote for two of one party and one of the other party.  This was designed to ensure that the General Assembly always had at least one-third representation by the minority party.

If you really wanted a specific candidate to win you could “bullet” vote — no, that is not a threat.  (Whew!  You really have to be careful what you say these days).  Bullet voting means marking the ballot for only one of the four candidates.  That candidate then receives three votes.  If you voted only for the two candidates of your preferred party, they would each get one and one-half votes.  This goes with Chicago’s long tradition of multiple voting – only this one was legal.

There  is all the runoff option.  In that case, if no candidate in a field of candidates gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the two candidates with the highest numbers compete in a run-off election.  That is what we saw in Georgia.

There have even been proposals for a “none of the above” ballot.   In that case, the last line under every office would read: None of the Above.  If more than half the voters mark their ballots for that non-choice, there would be a special election for the office – and none of the candidates on the ballot would be eligible to run.

No matter who ultimately wins the New York mayoral election, the Ranked Choice voting system has proven to be an ill-advised failure.  Even the folks on “Morning Joe” mocked the voting method, calling it stupid – even saying it suppressed the vote.  The CNN team avoided the subject but seemed to find it difficult to report on the outcome without suggesting the system sucked.

Well, at least we know who came in first – for now.  It was not the person you might have anticipated when the campaigns were first launched. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams – the tough on crime candidate — took first place with 32 percent of the vote, followed by MSNBC analyst and progressive activist Maya Wiley (22) and former commissioner of the New York Sanitation Department Kathryn Garcia (20) – rounding out the top three. Only Wiley and Garcia have any chance of overcoming Adams’ initial lead in the future rounds.

Adams was notexpected to do very well according to the early punditry.  He was the tough on crime candidate that was out of sync with the Democratic Party progressive establishment.  Then came a surge of serious crimes across the nation – hitting hard in New York City. That changed the metrics of the race.  Crime was no longer one of the issues. It was THE issue.

Coming in first in the initial count does not mean that Adams will be the next mayor of New York City, but his chances are rather good.

Based on an analysis of other Ranked Choice voting elections … if the first round winner exceeds 40 percent of the vote and is at least ten percentage points ahead of the candidate in second place, the lead candidate has a 90 percent chance of coming out on top.

If the lead candidate comes in just under 40 percent but is 10 percentage points ahead of the second-place candidate, the lead candidate has a 70 percent chance of winning.

As you can see from the numbers above, Adams is under 40 percent but has a 10 percent lead over Wiley.  By all analyses, that means Adams is the odds-on favorite to take up residency in Gracie Mansion – New York’s official mayoral residence.  But it is not certain.

Should Adams prevail, it means that New York will have a far different mayor than outgoing progressive Mayor Bill DeBlasio. There were times that Adams sounded like a conservative Republican. If there is any mayor in the past 50 years that could be compared to Adams on crime and policing, it would be former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

If there are any tea leaves to be read from this election – assuming Adams wins – they may bode well for the Republican Party in the 2022 midterm elections.  Democrats are already desperately running away from their proposals to defund police departments across the nation – but they cannot completely flip on that issue as long as the hardcore left-wingers are the tail wagging the Democrat dog – or donkey.

The Republican nomination went to the Curtis Sliwa, founder of the red-bereted Guardian Angels and radio talk show host. By all measures, he has virtually no chance of winning the general election. Ironically, his tough on crime message may have garnered more support had Wiley – with her defund the police message – won the Democratic nomination.

We will not know the outcome for a few weeks, but personally, I am cheering for Adams.

So, there ‘tis.