POLITICS

past the post” elections, where, it is possible that a divided field with multiple candidates from the area’s majority Party could divide their votes, electing someone from a Party not representative of the area’s majority consensus, like when Republican Andrew Eristoff won a special Council election against six Democrats with only 28% of the vote.

Consensus is the goal

But I do not necessarily oppose allparty “jungle primaries,” or other system which allow all candidates from all parties, and no parties, to run together, if those systems provide a method to make sure the final choice reflects the area’s consensus, rather than the first one to mange to cross the finish line with a small minority of the vote.

This is, after all, an election, not a track meet. Elections should allow constituencies to select a candidate who reflects their views and interests; systems should not be set up which facilitate the opposite result.

The problem is that some of these systems do that better than others. A few years ago, California, which has all-party “jungle primaries.” had a Congressional primary in a Democratic-leaning seat where two strong Republican competed against a large gaggle of Dems, resulting in the two GOPers having a narrow lead, and voters then had to chose between them in a runoff where the majority of voters were unable to elect a member of the House reflecting their choice of which Party was to lead that Congress.

There are better ways than runoffs of insuring that representatives are representative; most of them involve some form of ranked choice voting, of which there are several variations.

The variation cautiously and slowly rearing its head in NYC these days is called “Final Five,” which is a modified version of the Alaska system which in 2022 allowed the same electorate to elect a moderate Republican for the Senate at the same time it elected a moderate Democrat to the House, finally burying the zombie apocalypse we call Sarah Palin once and for all. Almost sounds a bit tempting.

The team behind Final Five includes progressives, liberals, conservatives, moderates and those who haven’t a clue what they are (e.g., Andrew Yang), Democrats (from left/liberal to DINO).

It includes Republicans, Libertarians, the politically gender non-conforming (e.g., Ari Kagan) and those who seem to want to destroy Parties as we know them (e.g., Andrew Yang).

Brownstoners may be impressed by the presence of one of our own Members of the Assembly Bobby Carroll, contributing a wonky, good-government oriented endorsement.

Probably impressive only to political trivia nuts is the group’s Chair, former Bay Ridge Councilman Sal Albanese, who last won office in 1997, and has since become the Harold Stassen of NYC politics, losing elections both primary and general elections for Mayor and last seen getting creamed in a race for City Council on Staten Island (when he’s not busy leading some group of Democrats endorsing some Republican candidate).

They are promising one day to circu- late a petition to put Final Five on the ballot so that it can be enacted as part of the City Charter.

But while, outside of Carroll, most of Final Five’s supporters are hard to take seriously, the same cannot be said of their proposal, which, with some caveats, is not without some real appeal. Still, there is no word when they will circulate such a petition; rumors are that the money to run a petition operation and a subsequent campaign are coming slowly, if at all, as Sal and Company try to drum up support with email blasts and by appearances at local political clubs and civic groups. So, we may be voting on this one day, but probably in no time soon.

So what exactly is Final Five?

In “Final Five” there is a non-partisan primary where every voter is allowed to cast a single vote, and then the top five candidates come back in November to compete in a ranked choice race. Why not save the taxpayers a lot of money, and just do one ranked choice race from the get go?

Final Fivers feel that too many candidates, a likely result of the system they created, can result in voter confusion, so the first round would be a sorting mechanism and then voters could make an informed choice among five options which, for some reason, they’ve determined is the sweet spot between too meager a menu and one too abundant (In Alaska, the sweet spot was determined to be four, but I guess there are more of us than there are of them, so whatever).

But hey, why not reflect voter opinion even more accurately by using ranked choice in both rounds? In the first round, we could just stop eliminating choices until we’d sorted it down to the “Final Five,” or whatever number tastes the sweetest. Less chance then of voters dropping a candidate they prefer for strategic reasons. Anyway, I had some qualms about the ranked choice system we currently have. Why restrict voters to five choices? The last time we used such a system (School Board Elections), we allowed voters unlimited choices, resulting in fewer exhausted ballots. But, ultimately it was clear that we’d probably get only one chance at getting ranked choice, and there was no point making the perfect the enemy of the good. So, I voted yes and urged folks to support the imperfect plan. So, while I’d like to tinker with the toy Sal and Company have put on display, ultimately my position is “Compared to What?” and on that basis, I kinda like Final Five, though I think it might benefit from some more appealing public faces.