Ranked-Choice Voting Rolls Out in Queens

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and this is a big week for democracy in New York City. A special election culminates in a Queen City Council District tomorrow, which could be historic in itself for possibly electing the first-ever South Asian member of city council, shocking that it's taken this long right? It's the first election using ranked-choice voting. All the city elections, including the one for mayor, will too this year, so get ready to not just vote for candidate, but to rank candidates one through five if you choose to vote that way.

Eight candidates are on the ballot to represent Kew Gardens Hills, Pomonok, Electchester, Fresh Meadows, Hillcrest, Jamaica Estates, Briarwood, Parkway Village, Jamaica Hills, and Jamaica. Also in the news, three white New Yorkers have received a COVID-19 vaccine for every Black or Latino who has. As acknowledged by the city over the weekend and as Gothamist crunch the numbers. Oh, and it's snowing.

In case you hadn't noticed, in-person school has just been canceled already for tomorrow as well as today. What will this do to turnout on special election day? Special elections are so poorly voted in to begin with where more than 20 people vote in the city council race. Joining me now are David Brand managing editor of Queens Daily Eagle and Habib Rahman host on TBN24 a Bangla language news channel that airs on Facebook Live, YouTube Live, and can be found in the Android and Apple App Store. David and Habib, welcome to WNYC.

David: Thank you for having us.

Habib: Thank you. Good morning.

Brian: Habib, I want to talk about how this race, the outcome of this race might be historic, and how you've been covering it.

Habib: Thank you, David. Yes, this as you've mentioned it is historic, because there are too many candidates running, and four of them are South Asian. That's history, as it sounds ironic, but it is true. The first time the voters will vote in their ranked-choice voting so that is also a story. Besides that, every candidate's claiming to do the right thing for their part of the community. James Gennaro, he was there for 12 years, and he's coming back to the race. He will have his challenges in these things because the dynamics have shifted a little bit in demography as well.

I think he has his work cut out, but we'll see what happens because, as you mentioned, the voter turnout is very low. I actually went to a few places yesterday, [unintelligible 00:03:04] site, and really low, really, really low, so we'll see. Then the weather is not helping their cause either.

Brian: David, I see that you also went to a voting place yesterday. Of course, there was early voting in this election. They don't do that on the Monday before election day. Early voting ended yesterday and today's a day off and tomorrow is election day proper. I see you stopped by Queens Borough Hall to check out the early voting scene what did you learn?

David: Well, it's funny said, is this going to come down to 20 people voting because turnout has been so low? It's a little more than that, but not that many. There's been 2039 people visited their early polling places, and more than half of them were yesterday. Isn't New York City politics amazing? You have billionaire Stephen Ross weighing in and spending a lot of money on this race. Bernie Sanders, about 45 minutes ago, tweeted to endorse a candidate Moumita Ahmed. You have the lead singer of Vampire Weekend, you have three local members of Congress who are funding campaigns or endorsing candidates, and it's going to come down to just a few 1000 people whose votes were probably even more important than usual these past few days, because it's going to be really hard to get to the polling places tomorrow.

Brian: Habib, do you want to talk more perhaps about the candidate who Dave had just mentioned, who Bernie Sanders tweeted today to endorse? That's a pretty big foot endorsement.

Habib: That is.

Brian: Let's say people in the neighborhood are saying, "Yes, I really want the first South Asian member of city council, but there are four in the race. How do I decide who?" You want to tell us about this particular candidate and then set up that field for us?

Habib: Moumita Ahmed, I spoke with her quite a few times over the last few weeks. As you guys mentioned it, Bernie tweeted a few minutes ago. Yes. She got the endorsement. She has some big endorsement behind her, but more importantly, I noticed that she started this Queens Mutual Aid during the pandemic and did a lot of grassroots work when it was really required. Not too many city agencies were really involved in. I think city really was not prepared. Well, none of us were prepared for this pandemic. I saw their work, a lot of work.

I brought her to my shows quite a few times. She is leaning to the left. Not surprising Bernie endorsing her, but it's as you know, you can be affiliated with the party in the special election you have to have your own party names along the line. She's a good candidate. She does social work. She does a lot of work, and she's a part of the Union that actually helps the Jamaica Tenant Coalition, I believe. It's maybe a little off the name. She's involved in quite a few things besides the Queens Mutual Aids. They are a very big proponent of AOC, and then there was their election for attorney general I believe. Tiffany Cabán was there, who were rallying behind her.

Brian: Progressive Attorney General candidate, who lost to Melinda Katz. Yes.

Habib: Yes, that is correct. But that was a nail biter too. It came down to wire. You can see their track record and it's interesting, because James Gennaro mentioned that this part of the community or the city are leaning towards left, because he's a moderate Democrat [unintelligible 00:07:02] or so he claims. Regardless of left or right, it will be interesting to see if one of these salvation candidate come out on top. It's really important to see because, in this election, what I think is people really don't have a clear picture as to how to vote in a ranked-choice voting. They can pick up to five candidates, but if you pick more than five, then your vote will not be counted, and there are eight candidates. If people know, the voters know how to vote properly, we may be in for a surprise.

Brian: Since we mentioned, Moumita Ahmed's name and we mentioned Jim Gennaro's name, just to be fair there are a number of women in this race. There's Democratic district leader, Neeta Jain, small business owner Deepti Sharma and Queens County women's Bar Association President Soma Syed. Soma Syed seems to be winning campaigns centered on equity for women and low-income New Yorkers, but in a way most of them are. I see the Democratic district leader Neeta Jain has picked up an endorsement from representative Carolyn Maloney, who represents that area in Congress. Maybe that will be meaningful to some people, just as the Bernie Sanders nomination is meaningful to others. David, would you add anything?

David: Yes. Well, I guess just to go through the other candidates because there's a lot of really accomplished candidates and I think there's a lot of diversity within the candidates who are South Asian here. Mentioned Deepti Sharma, Neeta Jain. There's Dilip Nath, who's a higher education executive and a voting rights activist, Mujib Rahman, who ran against Rory Lancman for this seat back in 2013, and he frames himself as a conservative Democrat. He's pretty conservative. Then there's an eighth candidate Michael Earl Brown, who he's an interesting candidate. He also filed to run in a special in the Bronx last year, and then prior to that, especially in Brooklyn, so he just really wants to be in the city council I guess.

One thing I would say, with Maloney backing Jain, that's Grace Meng's district, and Meng has not endorsed. I was looking through filings yesterday and she has actually contributed to three of the candidates. That's Deepti Sharma, Dilip Nath, and Neeta Jain. I would say indirectly directly supporting candidates, but it's interesting how this race is broken down. There are people who are very strong Moumita Ahmed supporters and no doubt about it, and she's gotten a lot of high profile endorsements. There are people who really oppose Moumita Ahmed, and a lot of that opposition comes from the Orthodox Jewish community, which seems to have rallied behind Jim Gennaro, who represented that district for about 12 years before Lancman, so he's trying to reclaim his

seat. Then you have people who really don't want either of them and I think have rallied around some of the other candidates, but particularly Sharma, Nath, Jain, and Syed.

Brian: What are the demographics of the district, David? If we're talking about a district that includes Fresh Meadows and Jamaica, it could be all kinds of people.

David: Yes. I think what's the case in so many council districts in New York City, it's just so diverse and just changing demographics. You definitely see that in District 24. You have the large Orthodox Jewish community, especially in Kew Gardens Hills. Within that, you have the large Bukharian Jewish community, and those are first-generation Americans or immigrants from Central Asia who settled. It's the largest Bukharian Jewish community in the country.

You have more moderate longtime residents, predominantly white in some of the other neighborhoods like Briarwood, but then you a obviously large South Asian population. A lot of immigrants, and first-generation Americans of Bangladeshi descent, Indian population. Then you mentioned at the top, the Pomonok houses, which I think get really ignored here, and that's a NYCHA development, predominantly Black and Latino New Yorkers, so very diverse district.

The thing with ranked-choice voting is that you'd expect candidates to be building coalitions and it's unclear how that's happening. Gennaro, in particular, has been criticized for blowing off a couple debates and forums that have been organized by South Asian community groups. That's feeling criticism that he's not trying to win the support of the South Asian community. Ahmed, at the top, she has also been criticized for her stance on Israel and the boycott movement, and so that has made her not popular among the Orthodox Jewish community in particular.

Brian: Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're talking about the special election for an open city council seat in Queens tomorrow, which has implications way beyond that district. It's the first use of ranked-choice voting in a New York city election, which all future city elections are going to employ. I'm going to ask Habib in a minute how he thinks that has affected the race. What's this small sample of one relatively small size electorate in one city council district special election? What are we learning about ranked-choice voting in these early days?

We're also going to touch on the revelation by the city. They finally released data on vaccination rates by background, and as you might imagine, there's a huge disparity. We'll see how from these two Queens journalists how that's playing out in Queens as emblematic of the city. My guests are David Brand managing editor of the Queens daily Eagle and Habib Brahman and host on TBN 24, which is a Bangla language news channel that airs on Facebook Live, YouTube Live, and can be found in the Android and Apple App Stores, TBN 24. Habib, ranked-choice voting, what can you tell me? We don't have the results, so we don't know how people did it, but here's this field of eight candidates. You can vote for up to five of them in your ranked-choice order. How has it affected democracy in the early going as far as you can tell?

Habib: Well, that's a good question, "How has it affected?" We don't know, because we will find out after this election. This is the very first election with a ranked-choice. As I was saying in the beginning, that I don't think it was communicated well enough for people to understand. There wasn't much time anyway after Rory left on November, I think third or fourth. They had very little time, the candidates I meant. Then the ranked-choice voting, if it was done properly, it's a start but I think it's a good start because it only affects the primaries and special election, not the actual election.

We'll see how it all works out at the end.

However, people will have a choice here and David Brand, it's nice to meet you by the way.

David: Nice to meet you.

Habib: You did a lot of good work [unintelligible 00:14:26] as you can hear from him. Yes. Moumita got the big endorsement. That is true. Cynthia Nixon also endorsed her. She caught a lot of heat lately from the Jewish community and Jim Gennaro took advantage of it because he is relying on a large number of votes from the Jewish community and the white population. That is true.

There are candidates such as Dilip Nath, Neeta Jain, Soma Syed. They are somewhat moderate. Dilip is a little bit conservative, that's true. I spoke each one of these candidates except I didn't get a chance to talk to James Gennaro. I was hosting a show, a debate where he was a no-show, unfortunately. It could be that he feels that the South Asian voting block is not needed for him. He will do okay without them anyway.

That's a missed opportunity for him, I would say, because the demography has shifted, as David was mentioning, that there's a large population of Bangladeshi Indian population who would feel that they were not presented well. They have an opportunity here to pick one of their candidates at the end if they do it right. You can pick five candidates, up to five, and if your first choice is eliminated all your vote shifts to the second choice, and so on and on. We'll see how it works out. We just have to wait for a few days and see how that works out.

I hope understand and they actually pick five candidates of their choice and that way, that will reflect that this ranked-choice voting really worked out well.

Brian: David Brand, anything to add? Have you seen any of the candidates running on, "Hey, if you don't pick me first, at least pick me second," and if that changed the way they appeal to voters? Like this is supposed to push people more toward not as much negative campaigning, but to try to woo the supporters of other candidates so that you get placed second in their ranked-choice. Did you see anything like that happening?

David: Yes. Well, that's what they say about ranked-choice voting. That was when a voter says, "Oh, I'm voting for candidate A," that's not the end of the conversation for candidate B. That should be the start when you try to win their support. I think we are seeing that a little bit. I wouldn't say a little bit. I think we're definitely seeing that, especially with some of the South Asian candidates appealing to the Jewish community.

A lot of people have told me they're ranking Deepti Sharma second, or Neeta Jain second or Dilip Nath second, or Soma Syed secondif their first choice is Jim Gennaro. Then I hosted a forum with Common Cause, and then a debate with Citizens Union in Gotham Gazette. In both of those debates, they were about a week and a half apart, I asked, "Who is your second choice?" Or, "If not you, who?" Only one candidate wanted to be upfront with that and that was Moumita Ahmed. She said that Deepti Sharma would be her second choice.

Even a few days before early voting, about a week and a half before the election, candidates were still a little coy or cagey with how they're going to set up their ballots. One thing I will note, all of them told me that they will be running in June, even if they lose. This a high profile race, at least in terms of high profile endorsements, is for-

Brian: They're going to do it again.

David: -a few months. Yes. We'll be right back in five months to talk again.

Brian: Right. That's what happens with a special election at the beginning of an election year, the selection is taking place in the first place because city Councilman Rory Lancman took a job in the Cuomo administration, so that seat is vacated. But it's February, and the primary for the next four years for this seat is in June. I guess maybe if turnout is low this time it matters less than in some of the races. I don't ever want to dismiss the importance of turning out to vote, but at least people would get to do this again with, it sounds like, a lot of the same candidates in general.

David: We'll get to talk to you all over again.

Brian: There you go. I hope so. This is WNYC FM, H. D. N. A. M. New York, WNJT-FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River, we are New York and New Jersey public radio. Before you both go, let me turn the page to the story that came out yesterday that the COVID-19 vaccine distribution has surprise, surprise, surprise, turned out to be very disparate in terms of who's getting it, as Gothamist writes it up. While Latinos represent 29% of New York City residents, they comprise only 15% of the vaccine takers. The Black community accounts for a quarter of the city, but their vaccination rate is merely 11%. Gothamist reports it's expecting state data to come out soon as well. That's city data. Habib, can you localize this information to Queens at all, or the 24th city council district for that

matter in terms of, if you're seeing the same disparities and if so, why?

Habib: Yes. As you said, "Surprise, surprise." There's no surprise. It is expected. There are many reasons for that. We don't want to politicize this, look at it from impartial lenses, then you will see one of the biggest reason, I actually spoke with many people and didn't even know how to register for a vaccine. They didn't even know what is the link or that URL that they will go. By the time some of them got it, they ran out of vaccine and then waiting for the second batches.

I'm not surprised from that point of view, but does the city have a priority, in terms of--? City really doesn't have a say here, who wants and who doesn't want to get vaccine. There this myth going on that it may not be safe. Some of them actually raise concern that, "Oh, I don't want to be registered. I want to wait out and see what happens." But, we'll have to see the whole number to make a judgment. It's too early to pass a judgment and make a big uproar and saying disparity because of the racial injustice and all those things. I think it's too early.

Brian: David, what would you add to that? Because there seem to be two things going on to the extent that it is racial injustice, it's many things, but including one of the things that Habib just mentioned, a lack of outreach to people who may not be connected as some other people, to knowing even where the URLs are or whatever, to go and register for a vaccine. At the same time, vaccine hesitancy seems to be different in different groups.

David: Yes, I'm sure vaccine hesitancy plays a part in this, but I think it's just such a larger issue of the injustice here, that it's about access, it's about social capital, it's about having Wi-Fi and being able to go onto these websites to make your appointment, to make it your appointment maybe for a daytime and you would be working otherwise and doing some type of essential job or you don't really have the time to wait around. It just should be very concerning that, this pandemic that has taken such a disproportionate toll on communities of color and low-income communities of color, in particular, we're seeing that again reflected in the disparities in the vaccine rollout.

We need to see more vaccines in especially parts of Queens that were not included in that priority list from the beginning. The mayor said yesterday, that city was going to add a few more neighborhoods, a few more zip codes to the list of communities where vaccines will be prioritized, but some of them, I question why they weren't added in the first place and specifically Jackson Heights and East Elmhurst.

Brian: Not only just adding zip codes, the mayor had been saying from the start that 27 zip codes would be prioritized because people of color who had been much more hard hit by the pandemic itself, tended to live there. Well, whatever prioritize means, it's apparently a failure because these rates are coming out as disparate as the disease. Habib, for you, are there any distribution sites? Actually, this could be for either of you because you both cover Queens. I'm thinking of what's going on in upper Manhattan now, where after some of these disparate numbers came out for the major side in upper Manhattan, which is the Washington Heights Armory, they then pivoted last week and started reserving 60% of the vaccine slots only for people who live in the surrounding zip codes and they also started reaching out proactively, not just waiting for people to come to them. Is anything like that, Habib, happening in Queens?

Habib: Well, okay. Two things. First of all, what, David Brand just said, that they're prioritizing the zip codes and stuff like that, that is true. When I was looking at the URL and you see most of those things are available in the Bronx or in Manhattan, the sites, for vaccination. I didn't see anything in Queens. That makes it a little bit difficult for people to access those sites because they really need to go there. If it is far from your house, how safe do you feel to travel out there and get it? Or do you have the means to go there and get the vaccine? Number one.

Number two is, you have to have access to the internet and a computer to reserve yourself an email address. All these things makes it a little bit difficult for people not doing so well, as far as the income is concerned. Yes, I haven't seen a big rollout in Queens. That's a concern, and that's something we need to take out, and we need to pay attention. But the city has failed in many ways from the start of the pandemic, and this is just one of those things, it comes down to vaccination. If you look at the homelessness, if you look at the income disparity, if you look at the food distribution, this district has suffered a lot when people needed to file their unemployment benefits, it's the first time in their life, they are navigating these things, the domestic violence, and all those things.

They were reaching out to TBN 24, where I host a show, and part of my show became a hotline for them. You may not know, but I had to really volunteer to their cases with the Department of Labor, if not only New York, New Jersey, you mentioned all over the country, because this person needed help. Especially in Jamaica, it was a big population. They were reaching out to us, they don't know how to do it, and now they don't know where to go. That means the information was not available for them. I reached out to quite a few councilmen, and one of them was District 25, I believe it was in Jackson Heights, Daniel Dromm. I got cold shoulder from them and then I found out that he's not running for city council again. If that's the reason, I don't know. The city itself did not do a good job at all.

Brian: David, is there an equivalent to the Washington Heights Armory, in Queens. A lot of Queens listeners might be having their ears perked up, hearing that Washington Heights story. At the armory, they're equipped to vaccinate 280 people an hour. 280 people an hour. They have 70 vaccine stations and each one, I believe, schedules four per hour. I believe that's 280 people an hour. I hear they're going to open up Citi Field, but I think that means it would be a drive-through where you might sit in your car for hours and have to wait and not have a specific appointment. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is there anything equivalent to that supersite with appointments like they have in Washington Heights?

David: There's a site at Hillcrest high school, but that was closed when the number of doses dwindled and so they had to pause the vaccine distribution efforts there.

Brian: That's closed. Are they going to do--?

David: They restarted yesterday again. Yesterday, okay.

Brian: They closed the line for sign up, but now they've reopened it again.

David: Yes.

Brian: All right. Last thing. We've been talking about the city's rollout. How about the state? I'm going to play a clip of Governor Cuomo, what he had to say in a news conference yesterday about the disparities.

Governor Cuomo: All hospital workers, listen to this. 70% of the hospital workers statewide, this is, are white. 63% took the vaccine. All Latinos, Latinos are 8% statewide of hospital workers. They're 10% of the people who took the vaccine. Asian Americans are 11% of hospital workers. They are 16% of the people who took the vaccines, so Asians are over-performing if you will, by percentage. Latinos are over-performing by percentage. Black population, among hospital workers, 17%, only 10% of vaccine recipients.

Brian: Who wants to weigh in on that and then we're out of time. Habib.

Habib: All right, I'll go first. Okay. At this point, I'm skeptical of what he just said. There are a few reasons for that. We all know Letitia James. She called out Cuomo for understating the deaths from COVID-19, a few days ago. Hours after that, we know that they did not count 4,000 deaths from the COVID-19 in nursing homes, so that's a concern. Number one. Number two, is when New York City got the $100 million for their renter's relief, the Cuomo administration did not respond right away and they waited on, and then they started the portal for two weeks and they shut it down. They restarted again when they found out they, the money, if not used, will go back to the federal government. They did start again. They're doing the same thing with the rent relief again. People are not getting proper responses when they need it the most. How they're vetting this, I have no idea because it's not clear to me. It's not out in the open. They bear out a lot of responsibility for this. With the COVID-19, we have to double-check this because I'm not sure what he's getting his numbers from. Letitia James was able to call out him on the nursing home deaths. Somebody else might have a better number. I don't know.

Brian: David, the last thought. 30 seconds.

David: Yes, I would just say those are the state numbers. I don't know how applicable they are to hospital staffs here in New York City where I'm sure people of color make up a larger proportion of the staffs. Would love to see those numbers more specifically to New York City and more specifically to Queens, which was the epicenter of the pandemic in the early days. We just got to see, I guess with the Biden administration how many more doses we're getting here and how many more vaccines we can distribute and distribute fast and keep people safe.

Brian: David Brand, managing editor of the Queens Daily Eagle and Habib Rahman, host on TBN 24, a Bangla language news channel that airs on Facebook Live, YouTube Live and can be heard in the Android and Apple, or found in the Android and Apple App Stores. Thank you both very much for coming on and talking about the election and the vaccine rollout. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

David: You're welcome, Brian.

Habib: Thank you.

 

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