Hello New York City!
Thanks for sticking with us. Tomorrow is election day here in the Big Apple and that means we have a new voter guide. We suggest you use this voter guide as a tool on your own research journey.
Voter Guides
NYC Primary 2023 Voter Guide — links you to a mega spreadsheet with all the receipts of our research.
Built for speed version — cute IG edition that you can take into the voter booth!
Here’s what’s on the ballot:
🗳️ City Council (*Ranked choice voting)
🗳️ District Attorney (BX, QNS)
🗳️ Civil Court Judges
🗳️ District Leader
🗳️ Judicial Delegate
🗳️ County Committee
Ranked Choice Voting is back!
Since this is a MUNICIPAL election cycle that means Ranked Choice Voting is back, but doesn’t apply to ALL of the offices on the ballot this election cycle. That makes this year only the second time RCV will be used in an NYC election since being introduced in 2021. So let’s revisit RCV and demystify some rumors and miscnceptions. Instead of us waxing poetic we went straight to the source: the Campaign Finance Board, the city agency responsible to educating the public on elections (you MIGHT have thought that responsibility would go to the Board of Elections, but apparently not!).
The Level Up podcast is also back!
In a new episode of the Level Up podcast, we speak with Turquoise Baker of the Campaign Finance Board, a young government analyst who has been managing Ranked Choice Voting workshops and outreach for community orgs leading up to the primary election. She’s pretty much an expert on this topic so we ask her to run down how the system works, the pros and cons, and also address some common misconceptions about the voting tool like what disqualifies your ballot.
We also recorded a segment while tabling at the 31st Ave Open Streets in Astoria and discussed what makes this election cycle unique (or annoying!).
New Season of the Level Up Podcast!
We’re excited to bring back the podcast with a few episodes on themes we find exciting and relevant. Subscribe to us on Apple, Spotify and Google so you’re tapped in when we drop new episodes! That helps our algorithm. Search: Level Up Podcast by Soft Power Vote! Is there something you’d like to hear? Let us know in the comments. Theme music for this season was composed by Mmeadows!