Sandra Ung (Sandra for New York)
June 23, 2021 By Ryan Songalia
Sandra Ung has a significant lead in her quest to win the 20th Council District seat — following the first round of ranked-choice voting.
Ung, a lawyer who has worked in the office of Congresswoman Grace Meng, generated 24.28 percent of first-choice votes, or 2,004 votes, in Tuesday’s Democratic primary election.
Four other candidates each brought in about 15 percent of first-choice votes and are still in the race.
Ellen Young, a former state senator, has 16.69 percent of the first-choice votes, or 1,378 votes; John Choe, a community organizer, has 16.56 percent of the vote, with 1,367 votes; Anthony Miranda, a former NYPD sergeant, has 15.32 percent of the vote, with 1,265 votes; and Neng Wang, the Chinese-American Planning Council leader, generated 14.98 percent of the vote, or 1,265 votes.
The other candidates — Dao Yin, Hailing Chen and Ming-Kang Low — all brought in well under 10 percent of first-choice votes, with 97.53 percent of scanners reported.
The candidates are all running to represent the seat occupied by term-limited Peter Koo. The district includes Flushing, Queensboro Hill and Murray Hill.
None of the candidates earned more than 50 percent of the first-choice votes, so the city’s new ranked-choice voting system will be used to determine the winner.
The candidate with the least amount of first-choice votes — Ming-Kang Low in this case — will be eliminated and people who chose him for their top choice will have their second choice counted. This process will continue until one candidate receives a majority of votes or more than 50 percent.
The election could go to any of the leading candidates depending on who voters ranked as their second, third, fourth and fifth picks.
District residents will likely not know the official winner of D-20 race for weeks.
The Board of Elections (BOE) will release the results of the ranked choice tabulation in one week — on Tuesday, June 29 — based on in-person votes. The board will continue to update the results each week as absentee ballots come in until it certifies the results.
The BOE, however, is not expected to certify the results of the primary elections until the week of July 12 or later to allow time for absentee ballots to come in.
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