Tomorrow is the in-person primary election in New York City. Polls variously expect Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani to win the Democratic mayoral nomination. In the background, the city’s charter commission is considering an overhaul of the mayoral electoral system. TLDR: one proposal would mandate two-candidate general elections.
We will see what happens in the primary. I wrote about the situation here.
For me, this episode underscores a tension in the world of electoral reform. On the one hand, many of these devices promise “majority rule.” On the other, they promise to make it easier to run for office without expectation of majority support. Some are drawn by the former idea, others by the latter.
If you are looking for a term to describe the form of RCV that the situation might bring forth, one option is “bottoms-up.” I wrote about it in this 2021 journal article.