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Ranked Choice Vote Count to Start in Southeast Queens Special Election With No Clear Winner Additional reporting by Ben Fractenberg
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Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
The Queens City Council District 31 special election became the city’s first contest triggering ranked choice voting selections after polls closed Tuesday night without any candidate securing a big enough lead to win outright.
Voters cast just under 7,000 in-person ballots in the race to replace former City Council member Donovan Richards, who now serves as borough president. Selvena Brooks-Powers notched about 38% of all first choice votes in early and special election day voting, giving her a 207-vote lead over Pesach Osina, who received 35%, according to the city Board of Elections.
Ranked Choice Voting Gets Its First Real Test In Queens
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There was no dominant winner in the race to replace former City Councilmember and now Queens Borough President, Donovan Richards, opening the door to the next round in ranked-choice voting, the new method all New York City voters will use to pick their leaders going forward.
The vote in Council District 31 the lines of which go from the Rockaway Peninsula and then jump the water to the inland neighborhoods of Laurelton, Rosedale and Springfield Gardens in southeast Queens were split mostly between two candidates. Selvena Brooks-Powers received 38% of the vote while Pesach Osina trailed her by only 207 votes, garnering about 35% of the vote. Manny Silva came in third with about 10% of the vote.
Community
By Reuvain Borchardt
NEW YORK -
A poster from Klal Vote urging voter turnout in Tuesday’s election.
A City Council special election is being held Tuesday in Far Rockaway, and Jewish community leaders are working on an intense get-out-the-vote effort, following a similarly successful push in another Queens special election earlier this month.
Former Councilman Donovan Richards’ election last November as Queens Borough President left an open seat in the 31st City Council District in Southeast Queens, which includes Far Rockway, Arverne, Brookville, Edgemere, Laurelton, Rosedale and Springfield Gardens. The special election features nine candidates, one of whom, Pesach Osina, is an Orthodox Jew. The other eight candidates, all black or Latino, are Latanya Collins, Nicole Lee, Manny Silva, Selvena Brooks-Powers, Nancy Martinez, Shawn Rux, LaToya Benjamin and Sherwyn James.
Will the Queens special election be a 2013 replay?
When supporters of ranked-choice voting make their case for why the new voting system is good for Black and Latino New Yorkers, they’ll often point to a specific race: the February 2013 special election in City Council District 31 in Queens. There, a white, Orthodox Jewish candidate named Pesach Osina came within 79 votes – less than 1 percentage point – of winning a Southeast Queens district that – as of the 2010 census – was 68% Black, 16% Hispanic and just 11% white. Besides Osina, the other seven candidates on the ballot, including the winner Donovan Richards, were Black. The numbers showed that the Black vote was split among several candidates, while the parts of the district with a large Orthodox Jewish population voted overwhelmingly for Osina.