With just two months before the first citywide primary where voters will use the new ranked-choice voting ballots, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the city is launching a last-minute $15 million dollar spending spree to blanket the airwaves and raise public awareness about the voting system.
In use for the first time this year for city primary and special elections, ranked-choice voting allows people to rank up to five candidates in order of preference. The mayor said the new investment, announced just two days after he presented his “comeback” budget infused with billions in federal stimulus funds, would ensure no voter went to the polls unprepared.
“We're having an election against the backdrop of a moment where people are actually paying less attention than normal because we're in the middle of a global pandemic,” said de Blasio, adding that the city needed to break through to New Yorkers with an outreach campaign that would go deep into their own communities, in their own languages.
“Anyone who doesn't understand the approach or hasn't been educated, anyone who doesn't rank multiple choices, literally their vote could be wasted,” he added.
READ: HOW DOES RANKED-CHOICE VOTING WORK?
The public-awareness campaign will be spearheaded by Laura Wood, the newly appointed Chief Democracy Officer. She’s filling a spot that remained vacant for nearly a year and a half after the first person the mayor appointed, Ayirini Fonseca-Sabune, left in January 2020 after two years in the position.
Wood, who served as Fonseca-Sabune’s deputy, said she planned to use this sudden burst of funding to run a multimedia ad campaign across television and radio, print, and digital platforms in 18 different languages in addition to working with community-based organizations.
“No vote will be silenced,” Wood said.
While the city has been rolling out ranked-choice voting since January, with the New York City Board of Elections charged with administering the system and the New York City Campaign Finance Board tasked with educating voters about it, some elected officials have warned there were still low levels of awareness, particularly in immigrant and low-income communities of color. Both agencies already have multi-million-dollar ad campaigns underway.
READ: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED ABOUT RANKED CHOICE VOTING ELECTIONS SO FAR
“Without comprehensive engagement, we risk major disenfranchisement,” said City Councilmember Alicka Ampry-Samuel, who joined the mayor at his daily briefing on Thursday. Ampry-Samuel sponsored legislation that passed earlier this year that required the city to take a series of steps to educate voters about ranked-choice voting.
Ampry-Samuel is also one of the Council members who went to court to try to block the implementation of ranked-choice voting ahead of the special elections this year. While a judge refused to stop its use then, the case is not closed. Lawyers for the plaintiffs have a motion pending to block the use of ranked-choice voting in the June primary.
Remy Green, one of the lawyers defending the city’s use of ranked-choice voting in the case, described her position as, “talking out two sides of one mouth.” But Ampry-Samuel made clear she supports both the city’s new investment and the ongoing litigation.
“We are not ready, right, like fundamentally, we are not ready as a city,” Ampry-Samuel told Gothamist/WNYC after the mayor’s briefing. She cited obstacles facing voters including the ongoing impact of COVID-19 in hard-hit communities, complaints from two of the newly elected Council members about their experience with ranked-choice voting, and even the June primary date, the first time a citywide municipal primary has not been September in recent years.
Supporters of ranked-choice voting counter those claims by pointing to exit poll data compiled from voters in the four districts with special elections that found that 95% found the ballots easy to complete and 75% of voters said they were familiar with the new system before they cast their ballot.
With the new jolt of money, Ampry-Samuel said the city can make a good-faith effort to raise awareness, even if a judge decides to roll back the system.
“We still have to prepare because you can't wait around,” Ampry-Samuel said.
