New York City implemented ranked choice voting in 2019 after 73% of voters supported it. It was first used in the 2021 mayoral election. ranked choice voting is used only for municipal elections, such as for mayor and City Council, but not in district attorney races, which are technically state offices.

The ballot is in a grid format with candidate names on the left and columns for each numbered choice. The voter then ranks up to five choices. 

If more than 50% of voters rank a particular candidate as their first choice, that person wins.

If no candidate breaches 50% of first-choice votes, then the votes for the candidate with the lowest vote are redistributed in rounds based on voters’ rankings. If a voter’s top pick has the fewest first-choice votes among all voters, that candidate is then eliminated from the race, and all of those voters’ second-choice picks are counted up.

In each round of redistribution, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and those votes are reallocated again. 

These rounds will continue until just two candidates remain, and whoever has the most votes between the two wins the election.

Advocates of ranked choice voting say the “instant runoff” system allows voters more power over who wins, as opposed to just picking one person. They say it gives room for winning candidates who are more representative of what the voting body wants as a whole. 

In this election, for example, Mamdani and Lander have endorsed each other to give themselves the best chance in the “instant runoff.” There is additionally a “Don’t Rank Cuomo” campaign stemming mostly from Mamdani supporters who are urging voters not to rank Cuomo to diminish his chances of advancing in the runoff rounds. 

In races like this one, with many candidates and no ranked choice, candidates can win without reaching even close to a majority of votes. For example, in New Jersey’s Democratic primary last week, Rep. Mikie Sherill won the race in a crowded field against five other candidates, but she only received about 34% of the vote. 

Advocates of the system say it makes races less expensive, as there is no need for a runoff election if voters have already selected their second, third, or fourth candidate they would support if their top candidate does not win.

Critics of the system say it is overly complicated and can lead to mistakes. Another critique of ranked choice voting is that the candidate who receives the most votes in round one can sometimes not win the overall race, as the runoffs occur.

For example, in the 2018 election in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, Bruce Poliquin led polling in the first round with a plurality of votes (45.6%) against four candidates. When ranked choice voting redistributions took place, about 8.1% of the total votes went to candidates that were not viable, and when those candidates were eliminated and votes were shifted to voters’ next ranked choices, Poliquin ended up with 49.5%, and current Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) won with 50.5%.

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Seventeen states have outright banned ranked choice voting in recent years, according to the conservative Stop Ranked-Choice Voting Coalition.

The New York City Democratic primary will be held on June 24. Early voting is underway and will continue through June 22.