A quieter election cycle

This election cycle had fewer competitive races than New York City’s first RCV election cycle in 2021. This was due to a lack of citywide and borough-wide races like mayor and borough president, and a larger number of incumbents running for reelection in uncompetitive races. By contrast, 2021 had many term-limited incumbents retiring, leading to open fields in most districts.

In 2023, there were 14 primaries with three or more candidates where RCV came into play, including in Democratic, Republican, and Conservative Party primaries.

Election administration and voter education ran smoothly 

The New York City Board of Elections successfully administered these primaries, which included a sizable number of mail-in ballots and incorporated a “ballot cure” period to allow voters to correct any issues with their mail-in ballots. Additionally, the New York City Campaign Finance Board conducted voter education and voter engagement initiatives.

NYC Votes, a nonpartisan voter engagement initiative of the New York City Campaign Finance Board, remained the lead agency for ranked choice voting education efforts in 2023. Staff members performed outreach and hosted training sessions, led a comprehensive advertising campaign, and created print and online guides about RCV.

NYC Votes conducted 75 RCV education presentations to educate voters and prepare volunteers to share information with their communities prior to the June primary election. The presentations covered a range of topics including what RCV is, how it works, how to mark a ballot, and how ballots are counted. Trainings and open webinar sessions for the public were presented in partnership with 57 organizations. Seven events were conducted in languages other than English. In total, the agency’s outreach events had 1,606 attendees and trained 450 people to deliver RCV education to diverse communities throughout New York City.

The NYC Votes print Voter Guide was mailed to 3.4 million registered voters who were eligible to vote in the primary, and contained extensive information about ranked choice voting. It offered guidance on completing the ballot, explained the ballot-counting process, and provided a tear-out sheet voters could use to rank their choices for each office and bring with them to vote.

The voter information website nycvotes.org highlighted ranked choice voting information for visitors and provided interactive tools to assist voters. An online practice ballot was provided, ensuring voters would understand how to complete their ballots during the election. The online Voter Guide included a tool that allowed voters to drag and drop their ranked choices in order, and save their rankings to bring to the polls.

This digital education effort for RCV was supported by a $500,000 advertising campaign. Ads ran on popular platforms like Google, Meta (Facebook/Instagram), YouTube, Snapchat, and Twitch, as well as print, connected RCV, radio, and out-of-home placements like bus shelters and subway kiosks. The campaign directed voters to online resources for additional information, and reached 4.3 million voters who made more than 124,000 visits to nycvotes. org in the weeks leading up to the June primary.

Upon completion of the advertising campaign, data showed a 2.2% increase in turnout among typically low-turnout voters who watched NYC Votes videos in their entirety. Voters under the age of 30 were 2.8% more likely to vote after seeing one or more NYC Votes advertisements. These numbers indicate that voters were interested in RCV and engaged with the videos shared ahead of the ranked choice primary.

The print Voter Guide was made available in each of the 13 most common languages spoken in the city. The practice ballot on nycvotes.org was also translated. Additional print materials, including an RCV Fact Sheet, were translated as well. A ranked choice voting explainer video was produced in 13 languages, with voice-overs, subtitles, and translated on-screen text. The videos were published on YouTube and embedded on a multilingual website. A social media toolkit offering suggested captions and graphics illustrating the RCV process was translated and shared with numerous government agencies and partner organizations. Finally, RCV presentations were conducted in Bengali, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Punjabi, Spanish, and Urdu.

NYC Votes could improve RCV education and address outreach gaps in several ways. First, NYC Votes could expand outreach in neighborhoods with above-average error rates on their ballots. Additionally, a paid “train-the-trainer” program would prepare and compensate civic organizations and associations for training their own communities, likely expanding RCV education to a wider audience. NYC Votes could also enhance its education of voters under 30 with targeted social media reels, as well as by partnering with influencers to reach audiences that might otherwise be hard to target.

More candidates led to more rankings

On average, 63% of voters ranked multiple choices in races with three or more candidates, with voters ranking more in more competitive races.

In races with three candidates, 61% of voters ranked multiple choices, perhaps reflecting that voters were less likely to find multiple candidates on the ballot whom they wanted to support. In races with four candidates, 67% used at least two rankings, and voters in those contests ranked an average of 2.6 candidates out of 4.

Size of race	Mean rankings used	% who ranked 2+ unique candidates
Two-candidate races	1.4	37%
Three-candidate races	2.1	61%
Four-candidate races	2.6	67%

This rate of ranking is an increase over New York City’s 2021 RCV elections for races of comparable size. However, crowded fields in 2021 drew more ranking in the races with five or more candidates; there were no comparable races in 2023.

Categorised in: Politics