NYC Gazette

An early mistake in counting the New York City Democratic mayoral primary votes has led to a rash of criticisms targeting the Board of Elections. 

City officials failed to remove 135,000 test ballots from the electronic voting system, thereby skewing election results, NPR reported. Further, ranked-choice voting complicated the election process, as incorrect ballots had to be tabulated using the more complex ranking system.

In a tweet following the debacle, the Board of Elections wrote, "The board apologizes for the error and has taken immediate measures to ensure the most accurate up to date results are reported." 

According to the Wall Street Journal's editorial board, the complexity of New York’s ranked-choice voting system led to voter confusion and questionable election strategies from candidates. 

“The Board of Elections secondary tally indicated that many voters didn’t record all of their second through fifth choices," the Journal editorial board wrote. "Many may have come from low-information voters with little time or interest to compare at least five candidates.” 

The editorial board also noted that “the weekend before the primary, Andrew Yang urged his supporters to rank Kathryn Garcia second on their ballots. The move was a blocking strategy against Mr. [Eric] Adams. All of these factors can leave voters doubting that election outcomes reflect the public will.” 

Adams won the primary and is a heavy favorite to win the general election in November.

The editorial board concluded that, regarding ranked-choice electronic voting, “theoretical benefit is more than negated by delayed, shifting tallies and overall voter confusion.”

In a parting shot at the city's elections processes, the editorial staff wrote that "the city that lectures Georgia and other states can’t even keep track of the votes."

USA Today reported that electronic voting machines might pose more problems to election integrity than is usually assumed. 

“All election systems are for the most part black boxes, proprietary software and hardware jealously guarded by the handful of companies selling them," USA Today wrote. "But state reviews and court cases opening up DRE [direct-recording electronic] systems of all makes and models for examination have for years flagged problems.”

Despite concerns, there is a growing number of jurisdictions using ranked-choice voting. 

There are more than 20 local governments nationwide that use ranked-choice voting, according to the website FairVote.org. Maine uses the system for state and federal elections and an additional 53 governments are planning to use ranked-choice voting.