This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Ranked

choice voting. As New Yorkers head to the polls and the primaries for upcoming local elections,

voters will have the chance to vote for not one, but up to five of their preferred candidates.

This is a brief explainer from the New York Board of Elections.

There's a new way for New Yorkers to have their say in city elections.

A way that gives voters more choices and can lead to more diverse winners.

It's called ranked choice voting.

74% of New York voters chose to use it in primary and special elections for city offices, mayor, public advocate, comptroller, borough president, and city council.

This is a relatively new system for New Yorkers. It was introduced following a referendum in

2019. It's also in use in Maine and Alaska and San Francisco. It's gaining interest across the

country. We're joined now by John Torleton. He's editor-in-chief of the Independent, which is closely

following New York City's mayoral election. They had Zoran Mamdani on the cover of their

January issue. John's recent piece is headlines Zoran Mamdani's Path to Victory. They were also

the first publication to have AOC, Alexandra Casio-Cortez,

before she was elected to Congress on their cover. Welcome, John, to Democracy Now.

Amy, it's great to be with you. So R-C-V, ranked choice voting. Talk about what it is and how it came to New York, the whole history.

Sure. So ranked choice voting was first implemented in San Francisco in 2004, and it's now used in

about 40 cities and towns across the United States, including in Oakland, Boulder, Colorado, Minneapolis,

Burlington, Vermont, Tacoma Park, Maryland, and other places.

And it's also used statewide in Maine and Alaska.

And like that announcement was saying, we had a voter referendum in New York that approved it in 2019, and we first implemented it in 2021 in our last mayoral cycle here in New York.

And what's the problem it's correcting?

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