New York City Rescinds Unofficial Mayoral Race Results After Including 135,000 Test Ballots

New York Citys Democratic mayoral primary was thrust into chaos on Tuesday night after the citys Board of Elections released, then withdrew a new tally of votes after saying it accidentally included 135,000 test ballots in its preliminary figures.

The problem came just hours after officials released preliminary results from the states new ranked-choice voting system, which showed the race between Brooklyn borough President Eric Adams, former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia and civil rights attorney Maya Wiley narrowing significantly. Adams had held a large lead after the states primary night, June 22, but the results were expected to take weeks to firm up.

The city Board of Elections said Tuesday night that it was aware of a discrepancy in the unofficial results and that it was working with technical staff to figure out how it occurred. The board later said it inadvertently included the dummy ballots from a mandatory pre-qualification testing in its count released earlier in the day.

Officials said the board had removed the test ballots from the counting system and would retabulate the correct ones.

The Board apologizes for the error and has taken immediate measures to ensure the most accurate up-to-date results are reported, it said.

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NYC Board of Elections (@BOENYC) June 30, 2021

Its unclear if the results showing Adams just ahead of Garcia and Wiley were accurate or if the lineup would change after the discrepancy was investigated.

Results from the ranked-choice vote are now expected on June 30. Election officials also still need to sift through and count 124,000 Democratic absentee ballots, meaning an official result is likely still weeks away.

In a ranked-choice voting system, voters have the opportunity to rank five candidates in order of preference.

Then, the votes are counted in multiple rounds. In each round, the worst-performing candidate is eliminated, and that candidates voters are redistributed to those voters next-ranked choice. The winning candidate is the first person to reach a majority of votes through this multi-round elimination system.

Proponents of the system argue it gives voters more options, avoids situations where a candidate prevails with a mere plurality of the vote, and requires candidates to campaign more cooperatively.

As of Sunday, 55,000 of the absentee ballots submitted to the board of elections were from state Assembly districts won by Adams, 39,000 from districts that Garcia won and 17,000 from districts that went for Wiley, according to an academic analysis of returns published in the New York Post .

We are incredibly hopeful about the 124,000 absentee ballots that are out there, Garcia said at a Tuesday press conference. Many of them came from electoral districts that I did well in.

But were going to have to wait until they all get counted, she added. That is what I intend to do. Im certainly not counting any chickens before they hatch.

On election night, before the start of the ranked-choice elimination process, Adams had 31.7% of first-choice votes, compared with 22.2% for Wiley and 19.5% for Garcia.

Wiley, who appears to have lost ground since election night, released a statement suggesting that she is waiting for official results that account for absentee ballots.