NEW YORK CITY - The NYC Charter Revision Commission (CRC) will hold its final meeting on July 21 to decide what reforms to city policy will appear on the November ballot. However, one proposal will not be on the commission’s docket – open primaries.
Commissioners decided to scrap their proposal for a nonpartisan, top-two primary which would have extended participation in taxpayer-funded primaries to all candidates and voters, regardless of party, and used ranked choice voting to determine the top two vote-getters.
The system would have allowed the city’s 1.1 million registered independent voters an opportunity to have a meaningful say in elections, but it would have also reduced voters’ options in the general election.
CRC Chair Richard R. Buery Jr. announced the commission's decision, saying “after careful consideration and extensive input from stakeholders from across the city, we will not consider the question of open primaries with the top two.”
Understandably, this has left independent voters frustrated. Hundreds of New Yorkers who choose not to affiliate with a party testified in person and via Zoom about wanting an equal voice in a system that has long disenfranchised them.
One of these independents – an Army veteran and 9/11 First Responder – wrote on IVN: “partisans, unions, and party bosses have won again. Independents, veterans, working people, young people and democracy have lost again.”
Open primaries advocates (who have tried for several years to end closed primary elections in NYC) were equally distraught. John Opdycke, president of the better elections group Open Primaries, said:
The NYC Democratic establishment made it clear that they control who votes and who is shut out. It’s the same mentality that led them to shield Biden from the public in 2024. Independents are growing. We’re not strong enough yet. But we’re not going anywhere.”
There is truth in this statement. NYC, like the state of New York, does not have a citizen-led initiative process. Any changes to the city charter, including election reform, has to be put on the ballot by a CRC – which is put together by the mayor.
This gives the Democratic Party, the single-most dominant political group in NYC, considerable control over changes to the city’s charter and can partly explain why open primary reform has been the can the CRC has consistently kicked down the road for over a decade.
Going Forward with Top Two Set Open Primary Reform Up for Failure
As frustrated as the city’s independent voter population is, it wasn’t just the commission that failed them. It was the Top Two proposal itself.
Buery, who said he wanted to see the proposal advance to the ballot, noted that there wasn't a “clear consensus” on how to advance it, already having mentioned the stakeholders in the city that helped influence the decision.
As previously covered on IVN, the opposition against Top Two was substantial, and included the most influential players in city politics, including:
Democratic leaders
The progressive left
The Republican Party
The Working Families Party
Labor Unions
NAACP and other minority representation groups
And any group closely affiliated with the above
The sole focus of many of these groups was on their own influence over elections. Democratic leaders worried about party control. The progressive left worried about candidates like Zohran Mamdani being successful in the future.
The Republican Party and the Working Families Party both worried about their ballot lines in a city in which two-thirds of the registered voting population are Democrats. Labor unions worried about their ability to mobilize voters.
While these groups brought up arguments countered by advocates of open primaries – like Top Two serving the city’s wealthy or the machination of “sore losers,” despite no evidence to support the claims – one thing was clear:
In a city dominated by a single party and with few allies to turn to, there was no possible avenue for success. Especially, since Top Two would have reduced voters’ options in the general election.
“A huge problem with your decision to focus on a Top Two primary is that it unsurprisingly creates opposition from major constituencies that might have been on board with other reforms,” said Rob Richie in testimony before the CRC.
The core problem with Top Two as your proposed solution is that it narrows voter choice in November.”
Richie is co-founder of the better elections group FairVote and president of Expand Democracy. He has spent decades advocating for ranked choice systems in the US, and argued that if the CRC pushed for any reform it should be to extend RCV to the general election.
In his testimony, he pointed to a rise in voter turnout in the city’s primaries as evidence that RCV is not only working as intended (builds coalitions, creates greater competition, allows for more choice), it is also popular with voters who can use it.
“What seems to be clearly boosting turnout in New York City is a ranked choice voting system that rewards candidates quite simply for talking to more voters - and for voters to learn about more candidates,” he said.
RCV in NYC gives primary voters the option to rank up to 5 candidates on the ballot in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice selections, the last place candidate is eliminated, and their voters’ next choices are applied to the results.
Subsequent rounds of instant runoff like this are conducted until a single candidate has a majority. The incentive under this system is to expand outreach for a voter’s second or even third choice, especially in a crowded field.
As witnessed in 2025, candidates are also incentivized to build coalitions with other candidates – which played a major factor in Zohran Mamdani’s win in the Democratic mayoral primary.
While the Top Two proposal would not have eliminated the use of RCV in the primaries, RCV advocates saw it as a regressive step in reforming the city’s elections, especially if RCV’s benefits could be extended to the general election.
They argue that Top Two would, in fact, put the gains of RCV at risk – especially the incentive for greater civility on the campaign trail.
“[I]t would involve a long, punishing runoff election where candidates would be rewarded for negative ads that promote their differences, not their common ground,” Richie co-wrote in a letter to the CRC.
Picking The Right Reform at the Right Time
Reformers who have successfully run Top Two campaigns in their state, like the author of California’s Top Two system, say it is “time to reform the reform,” acknowledging that Top Two was a critical step toward empowering every voter, but wasn’t the finish line.
“Elections should be decided when the most people vote. That’s exactly what California’s nonpartisan top-two primaries did for Californians,” wrote former California state senator and Independent Voter Project co-founder Steve Peace.
[T]he reform began the process of taking control of our democracy from cynical political operatives and the politicians either too disinterested in, or oblivious to, the damage done by the inherently divisive and hostile partisan disinformation that dominates the messaging from both major political parties.”
However, due to the way California’s demographics have shifted since Top Two’s statewide adoption by voters in 2010, the state’s electorate has increasingly become hostile toward GOP candidates, often resulting in Dem v. Dem statewide contests.
In a city in which two-thirds of the registered electorate are Democrats, NYC would be poised to have the same problems under Top Two – which might diminish the city’s already floundering general election turnout.
“Enter the application of ranked choice voting to a primary that advances the top four candidates instead of just two,” wrote Richie and Independent Voter Project Executive Director Dan Howle.
It’s simple. Double the November choices by advancing four candidates out of the primary, allow write-in candidates, and enact ranked choice voting to give voters more voice, avoid vote-splitting and ensure majority rule.”
Two years later, Alaska became the first state in the US to adopt this system. However, while state lawmakers have praised it for its positive impacts on governing, it has been under relentless attack from partisan interests ready to put repeal on the ballot until they are finally successful.
They failed in 2024, but are going to try again in 2026. The parties and special interests that have the most power to lose will always oppose nonpartisan reform and they will put all resources at their disposal to defeat it.
While Top Four or even Final Five (same concept, one more candidate) might be the ideal option for NYC – it is likely to run into the same opposition, especially from the Democratic establishment and its allies.
But two things are clear:
The city’s 1.1 million independent voters (who far outnumber registered Republicans) are denied an equal voice in publicly-funded elections, are frustrated with the status quo, and are less likely to vote in general elections as a result.
RCV is a popular reform in NYC. A 2025 primary election exit poll from SurveyUSA found that 76% of respondents wanted to keep or expand RCV, with 42% wanting to expand it to general elections.
In his testimony before the CRC, Rob Richie said the city should take a page out of New Mexico’s playbook.
“I recommend that New York City follow New Mexico’s recent lead and establish semi-open primaries – or, at the very least, change the timeline for when voters can change their party registration,” he said.
Susan Lerner, the architect of RCV in NYC, also asked that if the commission moved forward with anything, it would be a semi-open system that would allow independent voters to pick a party ballot without having to change their party affiliation.
Registered party members would be required to vote in their respective party’s primary.
Richie noted that semi-open primaries and RCV in all city elections were on the ballot in Washington, DC, in 2024 and the initiative passed with 73% of the vote. It gave independents access to primaries and it didn’t threaten anyone’s ballot line or choice.
“Nearly all the constituency groups that will fight against Top Two primaries will likely accept or strongly suppose use of RCV in November,” he said, especially now that voters have used it and like it.
The fundamental question at the heart of true nonpartisan reform is: How does this best serve voters?
More choice elections are clearly not possible in a system in which millions of voters are disenfranchised – nor can they be achieved in a system that intrinsically limits choice or forces voters to pick candidates based on strategy rather than true preference.
The CRC process in 2025 did a disservice to independent voters and reformers because the commissioners decided on a single avenue to pursue that was broadly opposed and gave voters a limited window to either take the offer on the table or reject it.
Open primaries advocates are understandably frustrated. The CRC has considered proposals to end closed primaries – including semi-open systems - for several years and in the end they elect to delay, delay, and then delay again.
The CRC pitted RCV advocates against open primaries advocates in 2025 when the right marriage between both reforms can be successful and has shown to be extremely popular among voters in polling and at the ballot box from San Diego to Washington, DC.
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