What a wild ride...
One thing is for sure, the Board of Elections cannot be trusted to manage the electoral process in NYC. This is for a variety of reasons, the most glaring is that NYC’s City Charter was designed to serve political PARTIES and not the NYC PEOPLE. Making it a breeding ground for local corruption. The people who run the Board of Elections in the city, for example, are *appointed* by the Dem and Republican parties. That said, they completely fumbled the Ranked Choice Voting process, which breeds mistrust in the system. The whole structure needs to be UPDATED, flipped and reversed. Stay tuned.
This weekend, check out the Brooklyn Art Book Fair! It’s virtual and it’s cute! You can find Soft Power Vote tee shirts at the virtual “table” of Te Aprecio Foto, the photo project by SPV co-founder Melissa.
With the primary election almost one month behind us, we have a bit of a grasp on where we stand. Yes, Eric Adams still is the winner of the Dem nomination (no change even after the cured ballots were tabulated), but there’s quite a few exciting firsts for the City Council that have us hyped for 2022.
ON THE RADAR
To start things off, some election stats:
998,000 total votes (Dem and Republican)—23% of registered voters.
938,000 or 25% of registered Democrats voted—the highest turnout for a primary election since David Dinkins won the Dem nomination in 1989, but still, abysmal turnout.
404,391 is the number of ranked choice votes for Eric Adams.
7,153, or 8%, is the lead that clinched a victory for Eric Adams over the #2, Kathryn Garcia.
140,167 is the number of exhausted ballots (people who did not want Eric Adams or Kathryn Garcia to be mayor) in the final round of the mayoral RCV tabulation.
Now let’s get to the historic firsts that will make the City Council the most diverse and progressive ever:
+ more!
Looking toward the General Election (Nov 2):
Registered Dems outnumber Republicans nearly 7 to 1—so barring any unprecedented upset, Adams will win the General Election and be the next mayor of NYC. However the field of competitors is already growing beyond the Adams vs Sliwa showdown (we at 7 candidates total folx!?!). Sadly Maya Wiley will not be running on the Working Families Party ticket, but they have yet to announce who they’ll be supporting. Stay tuned!
A candidate that has piqued our interest is Queens public school teacher, socialist organizer, and daughter of Colombian immigrants, Cathy Rojas. We vibe hard with her platform (check it out here!), but wonder...would throwing our support behind her actually give Sliwa, the Republican nominee, noted cat wrangler, and former BF of Queens DA Melinda Katz, a chance to win?
While the election was just a short time ago, Adams has been busy hanging out with Trump donors, seeking advice from the father of stop-and-frisk, Bill Bratton, pitching dyslexia screenings to combat gun violence at the whitehouse, and showing up on the zoom account of disgraced Queens state senator Hiram Monseratte (slashed the face of his GF and was found guilty of corruption) during a Queens County Dem meeting. We kinda feel like we need someone to rescue us.
Though most of the City Council Dem primary winners will be unopposed in the general election or do not have a serious Republican/Conservative competitor, Felicia Singh will be fighting to flip a red district blue—yes, District 32 is one of the handful of Republican represented districts in NYC despite the diversity of its residents. Let’s throw our support behind Felicia and get her elected to the City Council!
Also in the November General Election, we’ll be voting on 5 ballot measures, including a chance to make voter registration and voting easier:
Redistricting Changes Amendment - Makes changes to the redistricting process in New York
Environmental Rights Amendment - Creates a state constitutional right to clean air, clean water, and a healthful environment
Allow for Same-Day Voter Registration Amendment - Authorizes the legislature to pass a law for same-day voter registration
Allow for No-Excuse Absentee Voting Amendment - Authorizes the legislature to pass a law for no-excuse absentee voting
NYC Civil Court Jurisdiction Amendment - Increases the NYC Civil Court's jurisdiction from civil cases involving $25,000 to $50,000
We’ll be messaging about these ballot measures closer to November.
Ranked-choice voting aftermath:
Monday, July 19 @ 10:30am, Assembly Member Latrice Walker will be holding a Ranked Choice Voting review hearing. So far, no zoom link has been provided (is the NY Assembly done with transparency?), but you can show up to the NAB Theater at 285 Jay St. in BK to tune in. Expect the unexpected in this hearing about RCV even though, by many accounts and despite the BOE, RCV was very successful.
Lastly, the matha fuckin’ Board of Elections:
What a disaster. The good news is, the NY Senate will be holding state-wide hearings—bc it’s not just bad in NYC—to figure out how we can change our comically inept BOE and make NY more democratic. Hearings are expected to start July 28 at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn.
CULTURAL WORK
The Brooklyn Art Book Fair is going VIRTUAL again this year. One of the most supportive and welcoming spaces for creatives, the V-BKABF is hosting over 55 artists and you can browse over 400 publications! Soft Power Vote tees are in the mix. Check them out at the “Te Aprecio Foto” virtual table, the photo project by SPV co-founder, Melissa.