Democratic mayoral primary: Another round of results expected Tuesday
NYC primary drama
The Board of Elections is under pressure to do better after botching the first round of ranked choice results. The board mistakenly added more than 100,000 practice ballots in the first tally. The error was corrected but many candidates and voters lost confidence in the independent agency.
NEW YORK - New York City voters may soon know more about who is most likely to become the Democratic nominee for mayor.
Eric Adams holds a narrow lead over Kathyrn Garcia and Maya Wiley after the Board of Elections counted early voting and primary election ballots. The rankings so far do not include absentee ballots. Those 125,000 absentee ballots could be pivotal in deciding this race.
The Board of Elections is supposed to release those absentee ballot results Tuesday when the next round of ranked choice tabulations comes out.
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Political analyst Basil Smikle, who worked on Ray McGuire's campaign before McGuire dropped out, said he thinks absentee ballots may favor Adams and Garcia.
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"A lot of absentee ballots came from very densely populated areas of Manhattan and the Bronx — areas that favored Kathryn Garcia a lot," Smikle said. "While Eric Adams may occupy a lot of geography, it may not occupy a lot of density. That's where we are looking at Garcia's votes to see if she can make up the difference in terms of this count."
The Board of Elections is under pressure to do better after botching the first round of ranked choice results. The board mistakenly added more than 100,000 practice ballots in the first tally. The error was corrected but many candidates and voters lost confidence in the independent agency. The scandal prompted some lawmakers to call for hearings to reform.
"This is a major embarrassment for New York City, a major embarrassment for our democratic institutions, and casts a lot of doubt about whether we are doing what we are supposed to be doing to protect democracy," political consultant Hank Scheinkopf said.
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L-R: Democrats Maya Wiley, Kathryn Garcia, and Eric Adams are running for mayor of New York. (AP File Photos) (AP Images)