Few people look to our City Council for common sense. But buried in its proposed state budget and legislative agenda, hidden among the bids to raise taxes on the rich and price working people right out of the labor market with a minimum-wage hike, the council has identified a glaring problem with our election system.
It’s calling to abolish the runoffs in New York City primaries. Right now the runoff works like this: If the winning candidate in a primary doesn’t gain 40% of the vote, instead of being declared the winner, he or she has to run in another election against the candidate who came in second.
This rule applies to the three citywide offices: mayor, comptroller and public advocate. And it applies only to primaries, not the general election.
We didn’t always have runoffs. They were imposed in 1969, after a conservative mayoral candidate — Mario Procaccino — ended up winning the Democratic Party primary with roughly a third of the vote, with the rest of the vote split by five more liberal candidates.
This past fall, New Yorkers saw just how absurd the runoff has become when the city had to shell out $13 million for a primary runoff in the race for public advocate.
That’s an office whose entire annual budget is $2.3 million. To say that city voters could not have cared less is an understatement: In the most contested citywide race of the year, only 6% of registered voters even turned out.
Which raises the question: How is an election in which 94% of the voters stay home better than one in which someone can win with less than 40% of the overall vote?
So blindingly clear is the problem that even the City Council gets it. Of course, the council being the council, it couldn’t settle for the obvious fix. Instead, it proposes replacing the existing runoff with the so-called “instant runoff.” In this system, city voters would rank their preferences, with the bottom one being eliminated until someone achieves a majority.
Even if this were a good idea, and we think it re-introduces the same old problem, can anyone credibly argue our snafu-prone Board of Elections is up to the job.
Sometimes the simplest way really is best: Whoever comes in first should win.