The official winner will not be declared until all votes are counted
including early, election day, affidavit, and absentee votes. Ranked Choice Voting does not make counting any ballots faster or slower than they were counted before. Once all the ballots have been counted, the Rank Choice Voting computer tabulation is almost instantaneous.
Unofficial results, including the total number of in-person ballots that ranked each candidate as their top choice, will be released on election night.
If no candidate wins a majority in the first round, totals for each round will be released, although those results will most likely be delayed past election night. Ranked Choice Voting does not speed up or slow down counting the ballots.
Delays in counting absentee or affidavit ballots are caused by state law. Under current state law, the NYC Board of Elections does not begin to count absentee ballots until at least 7 days after election day, to allow for absentee ballots to arrive in the mail. The New York State Legislature is looking at ways to speed up the process of counting absentee ballots. We hope that any changes will be in place for New York City’s June 23, 2021 primary.