Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
TESTIMONY
Testimony by Greg Dennis, Policy Director of Voter Choice Massachusetts, on Boston's election reform and options for NYC
0:51:49
·
3 min
Greg Dennis, Policy Director for Voter Choice Massachusetts, discusses Boston's proposal for a top-four nonpartisan primary followed by a ranked-choice voting (RCV) general election.
He explains that while their default recommendation is often a single-round RCV election, Boston's history of crowded races led to interest in maintaining a preliminary election to narrow the field, but to four candidates instead of two, to offer more choice in the general election. For New York City, he suggests considering a nonpartisan RCV election (single round or top-five) and allowing candidates to list a political designation on the ballot, similar to Minneapolis, to provide voter cues while opening up the general election.
- Massachusetts municipal elections are typically nonpartisan, often with a preliminary election to narrow fields to two candidates.
- Boston's proposal, due to historically crowded races, involves a preliminary election advancing the top four candidates to an RCV general election.
- Dennis suggests New York City could adopt a nonpartisan RCV system (single round or top five), potentially allowing candidates to choose a political designation on the ballot.
Greg Dennis
0:51:49
Thank you to the commission for inviting me to speak.
0:51:51
My name is Greg Dennis.
0:51:53
I'm policy director for Voter Choice Massachusetts, a statewide organization that promotes ranked choice voting in Massachusetts.
0:52:00
Two years ago, we initiated the effort to bring ranked choice voting to Boston city elections, and we were thrilled to see it pass the Boston city council last month.
0:52:08
It has since been signed by the mayor and now heads to the state legislature for approval.
0:52:13
I understand the commission is interested in the Boston proposal because it involves a kind of top four nonpartisan primary followed by a general election with ranked choice voting similar to the Alaska system.
0:52:24
I'll provide some background on municipal elections in Massachusetts to understand how we arrived at that proposal.
0:52:30
The first thing to know about municipal elections in Massachusetts is that they're virtually all nonpartisan today and have been so for decades.
0:52:37
If you run for local office here, your party affiliation does not appear on the ballot, and there are no party primaries or caucuses to nominate candidates.
0:52:45
In lieu of a party primary, most cities in Massachusetts, including Boston, hold what we call a preliminary election, usually six weeks before the general election, to winnow the field of candidates.
0:52:57
In Boston, if there are three or more candidates in the race for mayor or district city councilor, a September preliminary election is held to narrow the field down to two candidates who face off in the general election.
0:53:08
The benefit of the preliminary election is that by reducing the field to two, they ensure that the winner of the general election has a majority of the vote.
0:53:16
However, they also offer a number of downsides.
0:53:18
They cost a lot of money to run.
0:53:20
They typically see very low turnout, meaning a small, often unrepresentative fraction of the public decides which candidates make the general election, and they depress turnout by offering us fewer options on the November ballot.
0:53:33
For these reasons, our default recommendation for cities in Massachusetts has been to eliminate the preliminary election entirely and just hold a single round RCV election featuring all candidates in November, as councilor Murano suggested.
0:53:47
While that's been our default position, that was not, in fact, our proposal for Boston.
0:53:51
Since Boston has seen some very crowded races in the past, including 12 candidates in the twenty thirteen mayoral race, we encountered unique interest in Boston in maintaining some narrowing of the field before the general.
0:54:03
For this reason, our Boston proposal keeps the preliminary election, but instead of narrowing the field down to two in the single seat races, it advances the top four candidates to the general election where voters can then rank those four options.
0:54:16
Even with some narrowing of the field, this model will offer Boston voters more voices and choices in the general election, which is when most voters are paying attention.
0:54:25
When I look at New York City elections, I see a a similar problem to that of Boston wherein voters are denied choices on the general election ballot with many strong candidates routinely eliminated in the primary.
0:54:36
In that light, moving to nonpartisan elections might seem like a clear win for voters, but I don't think the decision is so simple.
0:54:43
As I think most political scientists will tell you, partisan elections give voters important cues that voters rely on on the ballot, and they help organize issues into coherent party platforms.
0:54:54
With that in mind, one compromise sort of option to consider would be to adopt a nonpartisan ranked choice voting election, either single round or maybe top five.
0:55:04
You're already ranking five.
0:55:06
But with an important addition taken from Minneapolis RCV elections, which would be to allow the candidate to choose a political designation to be listed under the name on the ballot.
0:55:16
In Minneapolis, the candidate can choose whatever label they want, democrat, republican, socialist, libertarian, pizza party, whatever.
0:55:25
And allowing a candidate chosen affiliation on a nonpartisan ranked ballot might enable New York City to have their cake and eat it too, it could open up the general election to more voices and choices for all voters while at the same time giving voters these political designations that they can identify with and rally around.
0:55:44
And happy to take any questions.