Diocesan News

In NYC’s 2021 Election, Voter Turnout Was Low, But Democrats’ Spirits Were High

November 4, 2021

Tablet Staff

Vote_NYC
In the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, only 20% of registered voters cast ballots either on Election Day or in early voting. The report noted that New York City has more than 4.9 million registered voters. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

PROSPECT HEIGHTS — Results of New York City’s municipal elections on Nov. 2 may have yielded a few surprises in boroughs and neighborhoods, but at least two citywide outcomes were in line with expectations—the Democratic Party’s candidate for mayor won handily, and voter turnout proved scanty.

In the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, only 20% of registered voters cast ballots either on Election Day or in early voting.

Preliminary totals from the New York City Board of Elections, as reported by The New York Post late on Nov. 3, indicated that turnout was strongest in Staten Island, at 31%, while the participation in Manhattan stood at 23% and only 15% of those registered in the Bronx cast ballots at the polls.

These percentages will change once all absentee ballots are counted, but the bottom line is that mayoral candidate Eric Adams will become New York’s next mayor based on winning about 66% of the total vote counted so far. That total comprises “no more than 1.2 million votes cast,” according to the Post.

In other words, the citywide turnout rate was “no better than 24%,” according to the newspaper’s analysis of Board of Elections data.

Those votes, as of the latest count, gave Republican Party and “independent” mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa a second-place finish of about 29%.

Catherine Rojas of the Party for Socialism and Liberation came in third with about 2% of the vote, and William Pepitone of the Conservative party came in fourth with about 1%. The Board of Elections listed five other candidates with outcomes less than 1%.

The news analysis concluded that the voter participation rate in 2021 was “in line with the previous abysmal turnouts posted in every mayoral election since 2005,” in which no more than 1.3 million votes were cast. The report noted that New York City has more than 4.9 million registered voters.

Without undue surprise, as the newspaper put it, “less than a quarter of the registered voters in New York City decided who will be mayor, public advocate, comptroller, and sit in every City Council seat” as of January 2022.