Op-Ed

Yesterday, in one of the most crowded races in New York City history, Jumaane Williams won his campaign for Public Advocate against 16 other candidates with 33% of the vote. That’s right. A tiny fraction of New Yorkers — only 8.6% of active voters — turned out to elect the second most powerful politician in the city, and the victor didn’ t come close to a majority.

In the midterm election, 38 million Americans in 37 states voted early. None of them were in New York. Instead, eager New Yorkers turned out in record numbers only to wait in long lines, in the rain, sometimes for hours at a time.

Last Tuesday during the Ohio-12 special election, Americans found themselves angry at third party voters – again – for “wasting” their votes. This problem is not unique to Ohio: in multi-candidate competitive races, we see upset voters of one party or candidate hold others accountable for their loss. The blame should not be placed on voters -- it should be on the broken election system. Just look at New York City. New York City primaries are crowded fields, with sometimes with as many as seven people vying for one ballot line.