On Tuesday night, the New York City Board of Elections (BOE) announced that they accidentally counted 135,000 “tester ballots” for the City’s mayoral race. These ballots were added to test software but were never removed, throwing off the ongoing count.
These extra votes seemed to close the gap between front-runner Eric Adams and other candidates. Later in the day, the tally was removed to address the mistake. This has led many Adams supporters to claim the BOE was attempting to steal the election from him.
New York’s mayoral race, which already stands out this year with its use of rank-choice voting, concluded voting on June 21. Because of the new voting system, it has taken city officials longer to count ballots. Many candidates, including former police officer Adams, have taken to Twitter to respond to the mistake.
Other candidates, such as Maya Wily, also expressed their frustration at the mistake. Claiming this is “not just a failure to count votes properly today, it is the result of generations of failures that have gone unaddressed.”
This mistake is not a stand-alone incident – many public officials noted that the BOE has routinely made elections errors.
Currently, Adams is leading the race, with Wiley in second and Kathryn Garcia in third. 82.7% of precincts have reported their results and the winner has not been officially called yet.
