It’s almost that time of year again. New York City’s voters will be using Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) to determine their new city leaders in the upcoming 2025 elections season, so now is a great time for a ‘how to’ review of the voting process.
How to vote using ranked choice
RCV is a voting system that literally allows voters to choose up to five candidates, in order of preference instead of choosing just one, on a single ballot. In NYC, this voting system is used for the primaries held on June 24, 2025, the general election held on November 4, 2025, and any special elections for city offices such as:
- Mayor
- Public Advocate
- Comptroller
- Borough President
- City Council
If one candidate receives more than 50% of the first choice votes in their race, they win. Simple.
However, according to New York City Campaign Finance Board (NYCCFB), if no candidate has more than 50% of first choice votes, then votes are tabulated in rounds with the candidate with the fewest votes eliminated each round. If someone’s highest pick is eliminated, then their vote rolls over to the next highest ranked candidate on their ballot. The rounds continue until the candidate with the most votes wins.
- A voter can still vote for just one candidate, if that’s preferred, by selecting only one choice and leaving the other columns blank.
- A voter can still write-in a candidate in any rank
- If the same candidate is selected for multiple boxes on the ballot, it will not be counted.
- The ballot will also be invalid if multiple candidates have the same ranking.
- Check out a sample ballot to practice ranking your choices here at NYCVotes.org.
The city’s Board of Elections (BOE) will still post unofficial election night results, which doesn’t include affidavit or absentee ballots, at the close of polls on Election Day. The election will be certified up to a week later when all ballots have been counted.
Sidebar: Former Mayor Bill de Blasio once held a mock ranked choice pizza topping election, a fun ploy to get residents to learn about the new voting system in 2021, and ate a slice during his press conference. Out of 20,000 votes, pepperoni was deemed the winner. The inclusion of pineapple as a pick for pizza toppings to vote on was the most divisive choice.
Voter Analysis of RCV
In 2019, New Yorkers voted on an election ballot measure that would amend the City Charter and implement Ranked Choice Voting. It passed with 73.5% support. The idea was that the new system would increase diversity of candidates and give people more choice in who gets elected.
RCV was used for the first time in 2021, the same year incumbent Mayor Eric Adams was elected as the city’s second Black mayor in history, and for the first time ever a majority women-led city council. During the Democratic primary, Adams beat out 12 ranked candidates in eight rounds. The final round was between him and former NYC Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, said the posted BOE results.
Using a Cast Vote Record (CVR) system, the BOE concluded that 89.3% of Democrats and 56.6% of Republicans chose to rank candidates in the 2021 elections.
According to the 2021-2022 NYCCFB Voter Analysis Report, Harlem’s city council District 9 was among three districts with the most voters using all possible ranks for their city council race election. That year, former City Councilmember Kristin Richardson Jordan was elected over the late Councilmember Bill Perkins. The top three council districts with the most errors invalidating ballots in any race were all located in the Bronx in majority Black and Latino neighborhoods of Council District 14 (Kingsbridge), District 17 (South Bronx), and District 16 (Highbridge), said the report.
The second year RCV was used was in 2023. All 51 City Council seats were up for election that year because of the redistricting process kicked off by the 2020 Census. For these elections, 58.9% of Democrats and 40.1% of Republicans ranked candidates. Again, Harlem’s District 9 was among the highest percentages of ranked ballots due to a high profile race that saw Councilmember Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five elected.
The three council districts with the highest incidence of errors that invalidated ballots were in Black and Brown districts in Brooklyn and the Bronx: District 41 (Brownsville), District 42 (East New York), and District 12 (Co-op City), said the 2023 Voter Analysis Report.
Origin Story of a Voting System
For the profoundly curious, there are several “systems” employed to count votes that have been developed in various democracies in different countries centuries ago. The easiest one is whoever has the most votes against one other opponent, wins — which is called a plurality system. When a candidate needs more than 50% of the vote or it goes to ranked rounds is referred to as the majority system.
Under the majority system, the single transferable vote (or RCV) was first conceived by lawyer Thomas Hare in the 1800s in Denmark and Britain as the Industrial Revolution gave rise to the “middle class.” Hare was a big believer in electoral reform and proportional representation that limited the influence of elite political parties.
so will the machines spit out the invalid ballots so that voters can correct them?