OpEd By Ray Simpson

Charles Barron, who became popular because of his roots in the Black Panther Party and the Black Power Movement, has now seemed to have moved as far from the Black Power Movement as you can get. Barron and his protégé, Keron Alleyne, who is running for NY State Assembly in the 60^th District, have aligned themselves with the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America), an organization that many people say are filled with people who are interested in taking over political seats in neighborhoods that they feel are on the cusp of gentrification.

As we celebrate Juneteenth it’s hard to believe what I am seeing from Charles Barron and his protégé.

On Alleyne’s social media page, he proudly announces the endorsement of people like Cynthia Nixon and other members of the DSA, who are as far removed from the radical Black Power Movement as you can possibly get. I would argue that Nixon, nor other DSA members, know anything about the people who live in East New York, Brownsville, or Canarsie, which are neighborhoods within the 60^th AD. Nixon was taken to task in the past for saying black people getting marijuana licenses is a form of reparations.

According to a 2019 article by City & State, “upcoming state legislative races in Brooklyn demonstrate that the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are doubling down on their strategy of nominating candidates of color in gentrifying areas.”

Alleyne is running against Assemblywoman Nikki Lucas, who defeated Alleyne in the Special Election in February of this year. Lucas received 80% of the vote in the Special Election.

In contrast, Lucas has received endorsements from Mayor Eric Adams, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, Senator Roxanne Persaud and Attorney General Tish James. These are all elected officials that DSA would love to have voted out of office. At the same time, these are all elected officials who have worked hard in support the black community for many years and the reason the community is on the rise and progressing. All these elected officials reside in Brooklyn and are knowledgeable of East New York, Brownsville and Canarsie, which is not what you think of when you think of Cynthia Nixon or other DSA members.

Lucas has also been endorsed by labor unions that represent members who live in the district. 1199, DC37, 32BJ, UFT, NYSUT, CSA, CWA, TWU and others have also endorsed Lucas in the 60th Assembly District.  This is a district that DSA is trying to infiltrate, which by most accounts, would result in a swift move to gentrification. Gentrification results in the displacement of longtime residents and makes the neighborhood unaffordable for hard-working residents, which is what has happened in neighborhoods like Fort Greene and Bed-Stuy.

I understand that the Barrons are desperate to keep some sort of control in East New York but aligning with the likes of DSA, to me, goes beyond desperation and enters the realm of sellout.

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By Florence Mafomemeh         

Ranked-Choice Voting may have been successfully used in New York City for the first time in the 2021 local primary elections, but that doesn’t mean all New Yorkers know about it or understand it. 

What is Ranked Choice Voting?

Ranked-Choice Voting is a voting system where, rather than pick just one candidate, voters rank several candidates in order of preference. So even if a voter’s top choice doesn’t win, their rankings of other candidates still play a role in determining the winner.

In New York City, voters ranked up to five candidates. You rank your 1st, 2nd choice candidate, and so on up to your 5th choice candidate. If you prefer, you can still vote for just one candidate. New York City used Ranked-Choice Voting for primary and special elections for the New York City municipal offices of Mayor, Public Advocate, Comptroller, Borough President and City Council.

How much do New Yorkers know about Ranked-Choice Voting?

Being that the new system is more complex than a traditional election, it would be surprising if all New Yorkers are versed with the new voting process. Of the dozens of New York City registered voters I asked about Ranked-Choice Voting, some said they have never heard about it while others said they heard about it but still don’t know what it means. “What’s that? I don’t know what that is,” said Timothy Jebucitwa, a holistic doctor in Brooklyn.

Some who voted in the election said they understood the process while others said they didn’t understand what they were doing. “I don’t know what Ranked-Choice Voting is. I voted but did not know I was using RCV. I just saw many names and just picked the ones I wanted,” said Kenneth John, a Production Assistant at BRIC TV. 

One thing that stands out with most of them was their ignorance of whether Ranked Choice Voting is used at the state or local level, where in the state it is used, which elections and which races use it. Most of them had no clue while others said they believe it is used in their local elections within their district.

James Mongeluzo, a NYC employee said he only knows about New York City primary elections for city level positions and not sure if any other localities in the state use it. He added that he doesn’t like the limitation on the ranking. “I think an ideal system would allow the voters to rank every candidate on the ballot, but I realize that would be cumbersome. I don’t like the idea of people’s votes being thrown out or nullified because all of the candidates they ranked got eliminated before the final round of ranked choice voting,” Mongeluzo said. 

So why don’t many New Yorkers know much about Ranked-Choice Voting? 

Esmeralda Simmons, a civil rights attorney, activist and former executive director of the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College who criticized the New York City Board Of Elections – BOE for not properly preparing the public for Ranked Choice Voting said they did  not educate voters early enough. . 

“They waited until a month, maximum six weeks before the election before they started a serious voter education campaign. This was a major change in the way voting takes place. Their negligence caused community organizations and activists to have to fill in for their gaps. So, community organizations doing training on Ranked-Choice Voting, we had videos, we had people doing speaking engagements, I mean I did at least a dozen explaining to voters what RCV was and how it operates and what they needed to know. None of that was done by the Board Of Elections until the last minute when they did PSAs, some paid advertisements, and they sent out one mailer to the voters explaining Ranked Choice Voting. So a lot of voters did not understand it,” Simmons said. 

Simmons added that the BOE was against RCV and saw it as another burden on them. So once the voters decided by referendum that this is what they wanted, the BOE decided to sabotage it by not giving voter education. Several phone and email attempts to get some answers from the Board of Elections were unsuccessful.

Not only the BOE was against Ranked Choice Voting. Some opposition came from established politicians, especially mayoral candidate Eric Adams who wanted to keep the other type of voting they were more confident and comfortable with. Many members of the City Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus including its former co-chair, Council Member I. Daneek Miller, unsuccessfully sued to delay its rollout. Calling the Ranked-Choice Voting roll out “sophisticated voter suppression,” Miller along with the caucus also sponsored a bill to repeal Ranked-Choice Voting from the City Charter and put it up to a new vote in November. 

Simmons agrees that failure to inform voters about voting changes is an indirect form of voter suppression because when people are confused and don’t know what they need to do, they are more likely to not vote. “I wouldn’t call it a direct form of voter suppression but it is an indirect form of voter suppression,” she said. But she argued that instead of eliminating the change, which she thinks is actually good for all voters, they should call for the need for voter education which the BOE was negligent about. 

At the moment, the bill to repeal Ranked-Choice Voting is still pending.  The City Council Legislature says it was not voted on in the last session by the previous Council. That all unadopted legislation is filed at the end of a session and no similar legislation has been introduced in this session.

If you ask New Yorkers how Ranked-Choice Voting did in New York City, the answers will vary as it depends on who you ask. Its critics say the roll out was a failure while its backers say it was successful. Simmons who called it a huge success, said the majority of New Yorkers who are eligible to vote understand Ranked-Choice Voting because they already went through it and now understand that it is not rocket science. But there are also registered voters, some of whom I spoke to, who for various reasons did not vote so they are still uninformed on it.  

Preliminary findings show that most New Yorkers took to the new voting system while its critics charged that poor voter education efforts essentially disenfranchised some voters.

What can be done going forward?

The Ranked-Choice Voting system is tough to grasp. It requires voters to do a lot more research. It has come to stay in New York City so voter education will be very crucial going forward. The Board Of Elections has to have a better handle on educating voters on the process “This is gonna be around. This is the way City Board and Council district elections are gonna be held. So there needs to be continuous voter education,” Simmons said.  

You can also learn more about Ranked Choice Voting in New York city here.

Where else in the country is Ranked-Choice Voting used?

According to FairVote, a nonpartisan vote-reform advocacy group, as of April 2022, 55 cities, counties, and states are projected to use RCV for all voters in their next election. These jurisdictions are home to approximately 10 million voters, and include 2 states, 1 county, and 52 cities. Military and overseas voters cast RCV ballots in federal runoff elections in 6 states. 43 jurisdictions used RCV in their most recent elections. Only two states, Maine and Alaska have switched to it for both statewide and presidential elections, while a few more used it for 2020 presidential primaries.

If you are familiar with the New York political scene, you’ve probably heard how hard it might be to get legislation passed on any level of government. However, newly elected Assemblywoman, Nikki Lucas, from Brooklyn’s 60^th Assembly District, covering East New York, Starrett City, Brownsville, and Canarsie, was able to get a bill passed in less than 90 days of being in office.

Let’s look at her journey and how she was able to accomplish this feat.

The Woman

Nikki I. Lucas was born to parents who were active participants in local politics. She earned an Associate of Arts degree in Liberal Arts from the Borough of Manhattan Community College. Nikki would then go on to study at Syracuse University.

Nikki has lived most of her adult life in East New York’s Starrett City. At a point in her life, she worked as a management consultant and ran a music store in Brooklyn. She has also worked as a recruiter for the United States Census Bureau for four years.

She is currently a New York State Assembly member from the 60th district, She assumed the office on February 17, 2022.

Politics Beckons

We could say that political activism runs in Nikki’s blood, having grown up with parents that worked hard to get things right at the community level. It was only natural for her to tow that path early on.

Having grown up in East New York, she was exposed to a lot that wasn’t right in her community, namely a lack of resources, affordable housing, jobs, equity in healthcare, and equity in education, among other issues.

This fueled her drive and advocacy for the “voiceless” and invisible East New York residents, and so she increased her network to include community and elected leaders across different levels of city, state, and federal government.

But more had to be done.

In her 30-plus year stint as a devoted advocate for seniors, youth, and small businesses in her community, she discovered that her community experienced a shortage of resources primarily because of the lack of legislation and partnerships that facilitated the free flow of resources to the community.

To Nikki, the only way to change things was to become an elected official with the power to legislate and create important partnerships that can bring resources directly to the community.

Nikki’s desire to get involved in New York politics was also born of her recognition of the fact that women are underrepresented in New York politics across the board. To increase said representation, she decided to turn things up a notch by running for elective positions in her community. Her decision was based on her conviction that women’s issues and overall community issues had to be addressed legislatively.

Nikki’s run for elected office in the past were unsuccessful, but that didn’t deter her.

She kept at it, and as fate would have it, Nikki was elected to the New York Assembly in a February 2022 Special Election, by an overwhelming margin, garnering over 80% of the vote.

The Assemblywoman

Before becoming an Assemblywoman, Nikki had always implemented programs and initiatives aimed at uplifting and empowering residents of East New York and other parts of Brooklyn.

And so, upon becoming a member of the New York State Assembly, she hit the ground running, and it didn’t take long for her to get a critical legislative bill passed. She found a way to convince her colleagues about the significance of the passing of this bill.

Her job was made a little easier because other members of the Assembly understood that this piece of legislation had wide-reaching implications across communities. And so, as she describes it “I was able to talk to my colleagues who understood that this piece of legislation impacts all communities, not just mine. The debate on the floor was civil and everyone agreed that this legislation needed to pass, and it passed unanimously, with full support from Democrats and Republicans.”

So, what was this bill that enjoyed so much support?

It is called bill A9601B. It amends an already existing executive law concerning prohibiting discrimination based on status as a victim of domestic violence. So, in essence, bill A9601B broadens the protections for victims of domestic violence as a protected class under the Human Rights law.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg if Nikki’s antecedents are anything to go by. Her position as an Assemblywoman is simply a vehicle to express her passion for advocating for the needy.

What’s Next for Nikki?

Nikki must run again for her seat in the Assembly Primary in June 2022.

When asked about her outlook for the primary, Nikki stated, “honestly, I have been so consumed with my work in Albany and trying to make sure my district receives its fair share of resources, I haven’t had much time to think about running. I have a great team of volunteers and campaign supporters who are working hard to make sure we get the word out about the campaign and the Primary. I’m in the community and the people know that I am in Albany fighting for them. With that said, we are preparing to kick the campaign off, full steam ahead. We already secured endorsements from the largest labor unions in New York, representing teachers, healthcare workers and others. We will be announcing the endorsements in the coming days. But for now, I’m in Albany doing the work of the people in my community.”

Election Day is June 28, 2022, but Early Voting starts Saturday June 18 and ends June 26.