POLITICS: Should we take ranked choice to the next level?

New York City’s experiment in ranked choice voting applies to all municipal offices, but only in Party primaries, and in special elections, which are non-partisan. It does not apply to the main event; general election are still “first past the post.”

Yes, you can argue that, in NYC, Democratic primary elections are, in fact, the main event.

But, they are a main event with a closed guest list.

Virtually all the arguments in favor of rank choice voting apply just as much to general elections as they do to primaries.

Voters should be able to enthusiastically support the candidate they actually prefer, without worrying that their vote will be wasted, and that the waste of such a vote will help to elect someone they would not prefer.

by Howard Graubard

votes, they might even win in the end. Ranked choice general elections could elect candidates outside of the major parties, something which might ries might find themselves outnumbered by moderate voters from each party, and from neither party, who suddenly could form coalitions across traditional Party lines (assuming that moderate Republicans still exist in sufficient quantities). In some districts, the Green Party might win, but in others, the sharp edges of ideology might fall victim to candidates who taste more like vanilla.

In most places, ranked choice would expand the playing field.

Of course, as Heisenberg might opine, in some cases it could result in the opposite effect.

In 2006, a local white Council Member named David Yassky ran a credible race for Congress in a black majority Brooklyn district, likely hoping for a minority victory by virtue of a divided Black vote; under ranked-choice, a similarly calculated decision probably wouldn't have any chance.

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By allowing someone’s vote to be passed to their next preferred alternative, sometimes multiple times, ranked choice helps communities get their consensus choice, rather than facing the too frequent phenomenon of a candidate who does not reflect the community being elected because their opposition fragmented.

Founded June 2010 by George Fiala and Frank Galeano

In a ranked choice race, the Naders and the Steins of the world will get their probably much larger true votes, without facilitating the election of the Bushes and the Trumps. Maybe sometimes, having received their true broaden the ideological range of our government.

Ranked choice general elections might not only benefit the right and and left, but the center.

For example, instead of someone like Tiffany Caban nearly winning a district attorney race with a little over a third of the votes, a more likely results would be her losing by about 20 points in the last round.

In an all-party ranked choice system, the ideological activists who often have magnified influence in prima-

Anyway, one must ask, if ranked choice is so great, why not extend it to everyone?

Now, I’ve long been an opponent of open primaries, feeling that as long as we have “first past the post” general elections, each party should get to put the choice of its membership before the voters. Closed primaries also prevent Party raiding designed to see that the other Party selects its weakest candidate.

I’ve also opposed non-partisan “first (continued on page 6)

Even though this is a Red Hook-based paper, I've been writing about Gowanus goings-on since the paper's founding in 2010, and have been aware of it since quite before.

In the 1980's a friend of mine bought a building on Fifth Avenue, near the Old Stone House. At the time I was living in Boerum Hill without a car. One night I decided to walk over to pay a visit. My biggest memory is the tremendous fear I felt had crossing Fourth Avenue. Not because of traffic, but I had a distinct sense that muggers or worse were lurking in the darkness.

I don't remember knowing much about Gowanus. In my mind, you went from Boerum Hill to Park Slope. The in-between place was where blue collar people worked during the day. Once I asked Buddy Scotto, the great Carroll Gardens community leader, if there was much of a Gowanus neighborhood when he was growing up (which would have been the 1930's).

Probably Buddy's greatest claim to fame was getting rid of the stench from the Gowanus Canal that used to permeate Carroll Gardens whenever the wind was blowing a certain way. He did that by going to Washington DC during the brief period when Nelson Rockefeller was Vice President and securing $453 million to rebuild the Gowanus flushing tunnel. The smell, which we will get to again shortly, came from the still canal waters that collected raw sewage whenever it rained. The flushing tunnel kept the canal waters moving, eventually sending the sewage (whatever didn't sink to the bottom), out to sea, preventing smells and worse.