NYC’s Frankenstein Voting Experiment Helped Create the Mamdani Monster

Despite countless reports in the corporate news media to the effect that Zohran Mamdani “won” last week’s Democrat mayoral primary in New York City, this is a misrepresentation of the facts. In reality, the self-described socialist state assemblyman merely emerged as the frontrunner after the first round of ballot counting in the city’s ranked choice voting (RCV) system.

In order to “win” the primary in the first round, Mamdani would have had to convince a majority of the voters to designate him as their first choice to be mayor. Only 43.5 percent did so, however, while 56.5 percent chose one of the other eleven candidates on the ballot as their first choice.

Consequently, at least one more round of vote tabulation must take place. But that won’t occur until July 1, after all mail-in ballots are received. Yes, you read that correctly. Election Day was June 24, but the New York City Board of Elections continued to accept mail-in ballots for another week.

After mixing these with the early votes and Election Day ballots, a software program will do a second tabulation and eliminate the candidate who received the fewest first-choice votes. The second choice of the candidate’s supporters will receive their votes. If no one emerges with a majority after round two, a third round begins, and so forth.

Confused yet?

If this bizarre process seems unnecessarily complicated compared to normal primaries, it isn’t an illusion. Nor is it an accident. The promoters of RCV insist that it is more democratic than traditional voting. But, for its Democrat advocates, the confusion it causes is a feature rather than a bug. In addition to perplexing the voters, it produces protracted vote counts and elevates fringe candidates who wouldn’t normally be competitive.

RCV functions like a political Frankenstein experiment — piecing together mismatched second, third, and fourth-choice votes to animate a candidate who was never the true first choice of the majority. Unlike traditional runoff elections — where voters return to the polls and make an informed choice between the top contenders — ranked choice voting tries to simulate that process using an algorithm and old ballots. It replaces real decisions with recycled preferences, treating a voter’s third or fourth picks as if they carry the same weight as their first.

This brings us back to Zohran Mamdani, who couldn’t be more left-wing if he had been built in a laboratory by Leon Trotsky. This is a partial list of the promises he makes to voters on his campaign website:

• He will establish a network of city-owned grocery stores.
• He will provide a modernized system of fare-free city buses.
• He will provide free childcare for kids aged 6 weeks to 5 years.
• He will increase the city’s minimum wage to $30 per hour.
• He will make the City University of New York tuition-free.
• He will immediately freeze the rent for about one million tenants.
• He will renovate public schools with green energy infrastructure.
• He will preserve and bolster New York City’s sanctuary city status.
• He will evict ICE officials now operating from city-owned facilities.
• He will end all cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
• He will make New York City a sanctuary city for LGBTQIA+ people.
• Ad infinitum.

Anyone moderately literate in economics will immediately realize that, assuming Mamdani actually intends to follow through with any of these promises, he will need to find a plentiful source of new revenue to pay for all these goodies. This will be no easy task in a city whose residents are already burdened with exorbitant tax rates. You will be shocked to learn that Mamdani insists he can fund his grandiose plans by “taxing the rich.” This is, of course, what all Democrat candidates for any public office say when confronted with the need to explain where all the money will come from. His campaign website puts it as follows:

Zohran’s revenue plan will raise the corporate tax rate to match New Jersey’s 11.5%, bringing in $5 billion. And he will tax the wealthiest 1% of New Yorkers—those earning above $1 million annually—a flat 2% tax (right now, city income tax rates are essentially the same whether you make $50,000 or $50 million). Zohran will also implement common-sense procurement reform, end senseless no-bid contracts, hire more tax auditors, and crack down on fine collection from corrupt landlords to raise an additional $1 billion.

Like most socialists, Mamdani doesn’t understand basic economics. His corporate tax plan renders this all too obvious. If he had discussed this plan with a competent economist, he would have been told that corporations don’t pay taxes. They simply pass the cost on to their customers.

Moreover, he can’t raise corporate taxes without the cooperation of the state legislature and New York’s Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul. The latter nixed that idea when asked during a recent interview if she would support the plan. “I’m not raising taxes at a time where affordability is the big issue… I don’t want to lose any more people to Palm Beach.”

Economic illiteracy and a commitment to socialism are not Zohran Mamdani’s only liabilities. His public statements about Israel give off a strong odor of anti-Semitism: “The path toward a just and lasting peace can only begin by ending the occupation and dismantling of apartheid.” Yet he wants to be mayor of the city with the largest Jewish population in the country.

But thanks to New York’s adoption of RCV, he may well be elected. First, however, he must officially win the Democrat primary, and the Board of Elections hasn’t made that call yet. Then, he must win the general election.

Perhaps the city will wake up first. But if it does not, New Yorkers will have RCV to blame in part for any perils that may come from his mayorship.

David Catron is a Senior Editor at the American Spectator. His writing has also appeared in PJ Media, the American Thinker, the Providence Journal, the Catholic Exchange, and a variety of other publications.

Editor’s note: AMAC Action has been a leading advocate opposing ranked choice voting. You can read more about our efforts here, here, here, and here.