The final tallies in the September 10th primaries have finally been posted by The New York City Board of Elections. Typically, this was not done without the embarrassing error of forgetting to include the New York County and Citywide totals for Public Advocate.
And finally, we can say with certainty that Bill DeBlasio has avoided the need for a runoff.
On September 10, 2013, 691,801 votes were cast in the Democratic Primary for Mayor and Bill DeBlasio got 282,344 of them. He needed 276,721 to avoid a runoff.
So DeBlasio has taken the Democratic nomination by a mere 5,623 votes, a margin of less than 1%, with over 59% of the voters preferring another candidate.
Well, that is one way of looking at it, and not an illegitimate one.
I favor nominating and electing candidates by a majority vote, and favor instant runoff voting in all primary and general elections. We have the technology; it can be done. All we need is a little education.
The majority of the population can do hyperlinks; my 82 year old father knows what twerking is; —certainly we can all learn to vote in a new manner.
That being said, let me say that, whatever my personal qualms (many) about Warren William Wilhelm, the nature of his legitimacy as the nominee of the Democratic Party of the City of New York for the position of Chief Magistrate is absolutely without doubt.
Though he did not claim a majority of the vote, the breadth and depth of what I can only describe as a DeBlasio landslide is almost breathtaking.
Continue Reading on Room Gate.