Photo courtesy of LGBT Victory Fund
Six out LGBTQ candidates won their races in the New York City Council primary. Whether the city would have much queer representation was questionable because four LGBTQ incumbents were term-limited out.
Deciding many races in the New York City primaries took weeks because of a new ranked choice voting system.
Instead of run-offs when one candidate doesn’t receive 50 percent of the vote, the city tried a new system where voters ranked candidates in each race. The bottom candidate is eliminated and that person’s vote go to the next candidate on the voter’s list. That continues until someone receives 50 percent of the vote.
Except instead of making it easier, it took as much time as a run-off would have taken.
So we learned this week that six LGBTQ candidates have made it to the general election.
Those winners included Erik Bottcher who will represent the district in Greenwich Village where the Stonewall Inn is located.
Chi Ossi will be the council’s youngest-ever member if elected.
Crystal Hudson and Kristin Richardson Jordan will be the first two out Black council members.
Lynn Schulman will be the first queer person elected in Queens and Tiffany Caban would be the first out person elected in her district.
If all six are elected — and all are expected to win their November races in their heavily Democratic districts — that will be the most out LGBTQ people ever elected to the New York City Council in one term. The current record is five. In Dallas, the record is three, a number we’ve reached a number of times. Of course the Dallas City Council only has 14 districts and New York City has 53, so they have some work to do to catch up by percentage of LGBTQ seats.
— David Taffet