New York City to partner with nonprofit on ranked-choice voting education

New York City is committing $15 million toward educating voters about ranked-choice voting in advance of the June primary election, an effort that will include funds for nonprofits and faith-based organizations to do outreach.

The city funding will also support a TV, radio and print advertising campaign, and other forms of outreach and education, such as phone and text banking.

Candidates, good government advocates and other political observers have been nervous over the past several months whether voters are sufficiently prepared for the new system, which allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Lawmakers last year brought forward a lawsuit pushing to delay its implementation because they feared there wasn’t enough time to educate the public on it.

New Yorkers in certain districts have already voted under the new system in special elections. One survey from Rank the Vote NYC, which advocated for the implementation of ranked-choice voting, found that, in two Queens districts where special elections for City Council seats were held earlier this year, most found the process to be simple. A poll from NY1/Ipsos released last week found that a little over half of likely Democratic primary voters in the city considered themselves familiar with ranked-choice voting, while 47% said they were not familiar.