NEW YORK, June 22 (Xinhua) -- New York City on Tuesday held its primary election and introduced ranked-choice voting for mayor, public advocate, comptroller, borough president and city council members for the first time.
Though the general election will take place in early November, the dominance of Democrats in the metropolitan city means the winners in Democratic primary election will probably win in the general election.
The Democratic Party has a crowded field of mayoral candidates with as many as 13 people vying for the nomination, according to the Board of Elections in the City of New York.
Leading mayoral candidates include Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, former city Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, former civil rights attorney Maya Wiley, and former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
Crime or violence was listed as the number one concern among likely voters in the primary election, according to recent polls covering 3,249 New York City's adult residents by Ipsos.
As many as 46 percent of respondents consider crime or violence as the main problem facing New York City while affordable housing, COVID-19 pandemic, racial injustice and gun control drawing attention from 45 percent, 32 percent, 25 percent and 20 percent of respondents, respectively.
Mr. Hu, a resident in Chinatown of Lower Manhattan since the 1970s, said he voted for Andrew Yang in hope that low-income people could get help and efforts could be made to tackle crimes.
Hu, who is involved in the operation of a restaurant in Midtown Manhattan and did not want to disclose his first name, said he doesn't agree with current policies on homeless people.
"There's too much pampering for the homeless people, who have a high crime rate. The New York City mayor shall be tougher against violence and crimes," said Hu, citing an example of a local resident attacked by homeless people.
It could take a few weeks to know who finally emerges as the winner of primary election as the ranked-choice voting system requires the winner pick up more than 50 percent of ballots in one or more rounds of calculation.
New York City also introduced early voting for the primary election starting from Jun. 12 to Jun. 20 with more than 190,000 New Yorkers casting their ballots, according to the Board of Elections.
New York City has 3.7 million registered Democrats, 566,000 registered Republicans and around 1.08 million independents, according to media reports.
Incumbent New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio won Democratic nomination with 282,344 votes in 2013, when just 691,801 Democratic voters cast their votes, according to political data provider ourcampaigns.com.
Voters need to get registered with either Democratic or Republican Party by May 28 in addition to the status as a resident in New York City for at least 30 days and also a U.S. citizen.
The Republican Party only has two mayoral candidates in the primary election thus with no need for ranked-choice voting. Enditem
