Upper East Side's City Council Primary: Final Results

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — On Tuesday, the New York City Board of Elections posted the unofficial results of ranked-choice voting for the heated Democratic primary election for City Council District 4, and candidate Virginia Maloney came away the leader of the pack, beating out five other candidates with 53.2 percent of the vote.

This means that Maloney will likely face off against Republican candidate Alina Bonsell and Independent candidate Kyle Athayde in November.

It was a tight race for Manhattan's City Council District 4 in the Democratic primary election on June 24, and six Democratic candidates were vying for the open seat, left vacant by Councilmember Keith Powers, who was term-limited.

District 4 includes NoMad, Times Square, Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village, Murray Hill, Kips Bay, Turtle Bay, United Nations, and Upper East Side-Carnegie Hill.

With no candidate earning more than 50 percent of the vote on election night, the race headed off to another round of counting thanks to ranked-choice voting.

Here's how ranked-choice voting works: Instead of just voting for one candidate per race, New Yorkers ranked their top five choices, in order. If a candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes, then they win the primary.

Since no candidate earned more than 50 percent of first-choice votes, counting votes will continue in rounds, beginning a week after the primary election, which was June 24.

The candidate with the fewest votes will be eliminated each round, and the people who voted for the eliminated candidate will have their other choices redistributed to the other candidates.

This process repeats until there is just one candidate left.

On primary election day, which was on June 24, Virginia Maloney held the lead in District 4, with 26.79 percent of the votes, or 7,270 total votes. Vanessa Aronson was close behind, with 25.45 percent of votes, or 6,907 votes.

Aside from the top two contenders, Rachel Storch had around 23 percent of the votes, Wetzler had around 15 percent of the votes, Faith Bondy had around 8 percent of the votes, and Lukas Florczak had around 2 percent of the votes, by the end of the day on June 24.

The final results will be certified on July 15.

For questions and tips, email Miranda.Levingston@Patch.com.