Weighted Voting

NYS Election Law requires that County Committee nominations and endorsements be decided using “weighted votes.” Here’s the formula: UCDC members each represent a specific Election District (ED), and their weighted vote is calculated based on the number of votes cast in their district on the Democratic Party line for Governor in the last gubernatorial election. This is public information on file at the Ulster County Board of Elections. In other words, the vote of a member who represents a large district that tends to vote for Democrats will be "heavier" (and count more) than the vote of a member who represents a small district that swings red.

Ranked Choice Voting (aka Instant Runoff Voting)

When more than two candidates are running for the same office, UCDC uses ranked choice voting. Members vote by ranking candidates in their order of preference. In a three-way race, if no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote after the ballots are counted, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated from the race, and everyone who voted for that candidate will have their vote for second choice added to the tallies of the other two candidates. The candidate with the most votes after that is the winner.