Gaming The Vote? The Strategy Behind Your Ballot's Top Five

By Katie Honan, THE CITY

May 2, 2025, 5:00 a.m.

This article is adapted from our May 1 edition of RANKED CHOICES, THE CITY’s weekly election newsletter. Click here to sign up.

Lately, readers have been asking us: Is there a way to “game” the ranked-choice voting system? With such a crowded race, are there any tricks to boosting your favorite candidate? What’s the strategy for who goes in spots two through five?

We are here to say there’s no magic to it.

Our colleague Rachel Kahn spent time talking to voting experts who said the only strategy really is the most straightforward one: rank your favorite candidate highest, rank only the folks you could live with in office, leave off anyone you really dislike, and try not to leave any ballot spot blank.

“New Yorkers are always looking for some special angle, and the thing about ranked choice voting is it’s designed to allow you to vote your values. This one just doesn’t have an angle,” voting advocate Susan Lerner told her.

Voters don’t have to scheme when it comes to ranked choice. But campaigns do. Read more here about ranked choice voting strategy.

Also this week, the city Campaign Finance Board released their annual voter report, a trove of neighborhood-level information through this past November’s election. Some of the things that caught my eye:

There was a big spike in younger voters, with more than half of newly registered ones being under 30.

Those young voters came out at higher rates for the general election than their age group did in previous races.

There’s also a steady rise in voters who aren’t affiliated with either party, which bars them from voting in primaries. As of 2024, there are more than 1 million registered unaffiliated voters.

And last year’s November election had a sharp increase in ballots left blank, which our Claudia Irizarry Aponte wrote about here.

This press release was produced by The City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.