Eric Adams, Brooklyn Borough President, speaks to the media. Spencer Platt/Getty Images New York City Adams in the lead, Garcia gains after new results released by NYC election boardNEW YORK - After a tense day the notoriously dysfunctional Board of Elections released new results Wednesday evening. They found that virtually nothing had changed in race to replace outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio, despite a human error which could have been prevented in the release of the result a day earlier.Kathryn Garcia and Eric Adams are separated by only 14,755 votes. This is a margin of 2.2 percent in a race that will also be decided by 125,000 absentee votes, which the board plans to count next Wednesday.The initial count of 135,000 dummy votes was not accurate. However, Tuesday's Democratic primary split was exactly the same. At first, the board tallied 11 rounds in ranked-choice voting results. After the board's reliability was questioned, Adams won the next count after nine rounds. Garcia beat Maya Wiley by 347 votes.Wiley, a former City Hall lawyer who had consolidated progressive support during the last weeks of her campaign was leading Garcia up to the eighth round. Andrew Yang was defeated and more of his support was transferred to Garcia. This is a sign that Garcia's alliance was a last-minute one, which helped the former sanitation commissioner.Yang, the former presidential candidate who led the polls throughout the race, finished fourth. With 111,239 votes in his favor, he had nearly 14 percent of the vote by the seventh round. Garcia and Adams received a large portion of this support.Wiley immediately released a statement Wednesday evening claiming that the race was wide open despite the absence of any participants.She stated that the Board of Elections must now count all votes in open, following yesterday's embarrassing error. This will ensure that New Yorkers have complete confidence that their votes are being counted correctly.Adams, who along with his surrogates warned that Yang and Garcia could disenfranchise His predominantly Black and Latino base, filed a preemptive suit on Wednesday to protect his right to examine ballots if necessary. Garcia also did the same.In an interview with CNN, she also expressed concern about the possibility that the snafu could undermine the confidence of voters in the electoral process.Adams campaign claimed that Adams campaign led by a substantial margin due to the formation of a five-borough coalition of working class New Yorkers. This was in order to make New York a safer and more equitable place.The board, which was criticized throughout the day by candidates and politicians, who did nothing to professionalize it, issued an apology.The board stated that yesterday's ranked-choice voting reporting mistake was unacceptable. It apologized to voters and campaigns for the confusion. We must be clear. RCV was not the problem. It was a human error that could've been avoided. Before publishing any information, we have added another layer of quality control and review.This system allows voters to choose up to five candidates in their order of preference. If no candidate gets a majority, they are removed from the vote and their ballots are reassigned the second choice of voters. This process continues until someone reaches 50 percent.
