There’s good reason top Democrats are pressuring Bill Thompson to abandon his race for mayor as soon as possible: If he waits past midnight Friday it’ll be too late to cancel his possible runoff against Bill de Blasio, election officials told The Post.
A little-known section of state election law — known as the “Weiner Rule” — gives a candidate three days from the day of a primary election to decline to take part in a runoff.
Runoffs are held for citywide office if no candidate gets at least 40 percent of the vote in the primary.
The rule is named after Anthony Weiner, who pulled out of a mayoral runoff in 2005 against Democratic frontrunner Fernando Ferrer before all the votes in the primary were counted.
Confounded election officials weren’t sure how to proceed. Their worries ended when Ferrer, after a recount, ended up with more than 40 percent of the primary vote, making the runoff question moot.
De Blasio barely exceeded 40 percent on Tuesday night in the unofficial and incomplete tally. Thompson came in second with 26 percent — and has refused concede pending a recount.
Thompson is under tremendous pressure from Democratic leaders to throw in the towel in the name of party unity. But he would have to do so while the votes are still being counted and the outcome unclear.
Board of Election officials don’t expect to complete the voting machine recount until Sunday. They begin opening some 19,000 paper ballots on Monday and that second count could take until Wednesday or Thursday.
There will be a runoff election on Oct. 1 no matter what happens in the mayor’s race since the top finishers running for public advocate, City Councilwoman Tish james and state Sen. Daniel Squadron, didn’t reach the 40 percent mark.