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TESTIMONY
Testimony by Frank Morano, New York City Council Member, on nonpartisan ranked-choice voting
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5 min
Council Member Frank Morano testifies strongly in favor of implementing nonpartisan elections with ranked-choice voting (RCV) for all New York City municipal elections.
He argues this system, which he was elected under in a special election, promotes fairness, representation, and focuses on candidates' merits rather than party affiliation.
Morano criticizes the commission's preliminary report for its discussion of "open primaries," which he believes misrepresents and conflates the term with California's problematic "top-two" system, and urges the commission to put true nonpartisan RCV on the ballot.
Frank Morano
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Thank you very much.
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I appreciate thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today, chairperson, members of the commission, and fellow New Yorkers.
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As you mentioned, my name is Frank Moreno, and, I'm I'm new to the city council, but not new to the charter revision commission process, especially not some of the electoral reform issues that you have focused on in the preliminary report.
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I've testified before this commission twice already in favor of nonpartisan elections with ranked choice voting just as I've done before every single charter revision commission that has existed in New York City since 02/2002.
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This is an issue I care deeply about because it's about making our city's democracy actually work for the people that live here.
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On April twenty ninth of this year, I was elected to the New York City Council in a nonpartisan special election using ranked choice voting.
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No party labels, no backroom deals, just a group of candidates competing on ideas, character, and a record of public service.
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The result, an election that was clean, fair, efficient, and imagine this, actually representative of the voters, not the parties.
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And that's exactly how all of our municipal elections should be conducted.
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New York City is long overdue for a full embrace of nonpartisan elections with ranked choice voting, not just for special elections or temporary pilot programs, but across the board.
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This system is already working for us.
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It has for thirty years.
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We shouldn't stop halfway.
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We should finish the job.
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Let me be absolutely clear.
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Nonpartisan elections with ranked choice voting, the very method by which I was elected, are not radical.
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They're the gold standard for local democracy, and I'm not alone in thinking that.
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In fact, nearly every major city in The US that uses ranked choice voting uses it in nonpartisan elections.
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San Francisco, Minneapolis, Oakland, Salt Lake City, the list goes on.
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And let's zoom out a bit more.
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Nearly every city in America with more with more than a million residents, Chicago, LA, Houston, Dallas, San Diego uses nonpartisan elections.
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The only exception that I could find anyway, Philadelphia.
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And honestly, if you looked at how that's going, not very well.
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Nonpartisan elections are the norm, not the exception.
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They allow voters to focus on the person, not the party.
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They empower independence.
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They reduce toxic partisanship and restore the focus of local government to what it should be, competence, leadership, and public trust.
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And yet, in your preliminary report, you floated, I think, a dangerously confused alternative, so called open primaries as a counter proposal to true nonpartisan ranked choice elections.
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Let me channel my inner George Carlin here.
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Words matter.
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An open primary has a clear, well established definition.
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Political parties still nominate their own candidates, but any voter can choose which party's primary to vote in.
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That's how it works in states like Texas, Georgia, and Alabama.
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And you know what those states tend to have in common?
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Some of the least representative, most gerrymandered, and ideologically extreme governments in the country.
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So when I see this commission use the term open primary to describe California's top two jungle primary, it's not just wrong.
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It's Orwellian.
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What you're describing is not an open primary.
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It's a nonpartisan primary with a top two runoff.
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Those are not the same thing, not even close.
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And California's top two system, it's been a disaster.
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In at least four documented cases, vote splitting led to deep blue districts ending up with two Republicans on the final ballot or vice versa, completely disenfranchising the majority of voters.
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Why would we wanna do that here?
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It also shuts out minor parties and independent voices.
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Why should a libertarian, a green, or a conservative have to out poll two Democrats or two Republicans just to make the November ballot?
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It's not democracy.
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That's electoral Darwinism.
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Let's talk about cost and clarity.
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Ranked choice voting lets us settle elections, primaries in general in one round.
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One, no runoffs, no second bites at the apple, no months long campaign extensions or extra expenses, just one clean decisive vote.
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That's good government.
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And contrary to what doomsayers claim, voters can handle it.
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In fact, they already do.
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Cities like San Francisco, Oakland, and Minneapolis, they've been using ranked choice voting for years in nonpartisan local elections.
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The sky hasn't fallen.
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In fact, voter participation has improved and elections are more competitive and more civil.
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But above all, I beg you, be precise with the language of democracy.
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Stop calling a horse a cow just because they both eat grass.
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Using open primary to mean top two is a bait and switch, and voters deserve better.
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So here's my bottom line.
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Put real nonpartisan ranked choice elections, the same like I just had in April, on the ballot this November.
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Make one set of elections for New York City, not one set for specials and one set for generals.
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Don't water it down.
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Don't confuse voters.
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Don't let them need a decoder ring to figure out what system we're voting with today.
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Don't distort what works.
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Let's give New Yorkers a system where every vote counts, where no party has a monopoly, and where candidates rise on merit, not machinery.
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If we can trust New Yorkers to rank their choices for mayor in a special election, we can trust them to do it in every other election too.
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Let's be honest.
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If New Yorkers can navigate alternate side parking and the subway schedule, they can definitely handle ranked choice voting.
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Thank you.
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I apologize for going a little bit over my time.