The primary elections that New York City uses to pick its mayors will remain unchanged, after a special panel that had been formulating a switch to an open primary system said on Wednesday that it would not put the proposal on the ballot this fall.
Under the proposal, all registered voters, regardless of their party affiliation, could participate in primary elections. The 13-member panel, called a Charter Revision Commission, said it had decided not to put the proposal before voters because there was no consensus among civic leaders as to what the new primary model should look like.
Richard R. Buery Jr., the chairman of the commission, which was created by Mayor Eric Adams, said in a statement that he was “personally disappointed” in the decision and hoped the issue might be revisited in the future.
“I hope civic leaders will build on the progress that we have made this year, develop greater consensus and advance a proposal to voters prior to the next citywide election,” Mr. Buery said.
In a 135-page report released earlier this month, which outlined the open-primary plan and other proposals, the commission acknowledged that some members of the panel felt that this year was not the right time to introduce such a major change.
One reason to delay a move to an open primary system, the report said, was that New York had only recently enacted a big change to its elections — ranked-choice voting — that some voters still struggled to understand.
Another reason was the heated nature of this year’s mayor’s race, which was rocked last month by the surprise victory of Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary. The commission said the election had created “an inhospitable climate for discussion about an election reform of this magnitude” and that any debate on the subject might become “unduly polarized.”
The proposal had been opposed by people on both the right and the left, including Republicans who said their candidates would be swamped in open primaries in a city that is overwhelmingly Democratic, and the left-wing Working Families Party, which said the change would unfairly benefit candidates with wealthy donors.
On Wednesday, the co-directors of the Working Families Party, Ana María Archila and Jasmine Gripper, celebrated the commission’s decision, saying in a statement that “billionaires failed to buy New York’s primary system.”
Some critics had portrayed the proposal as seeking to prevent outcomes like Mr. Mamdani’s win.
Earlier this month, Brad Lander, the city comptroller who came in third in this year’s primary after a cross-endorsement with Mr. Mamdani, called the proposal an attempt to “overturn an election we just had.” He also said open primaries would “be ripe for spending at unlimited levels” and “will not produce better government.”
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the commission’s decision.
A central fact of political life in New York City is that registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by roughly six to one. About 65 percent of voters are registered Democrats, nearly 11 percent are registered Republicans, and more than 21 percent are unaffiliated, according to the commission.
That means that in recent years, the winner of the Democratic primary has been so heavily favored in November that many see that party’s primary as the de facto general election. And because the Democratic primary is not open to Republicans and independents, they are left out of that consequential contest.
A majority of unaffiliated voters are Black, Latino or Asian, and the plan’s supporters, including some civic groups and allies of Mayor Adams, have said that changing the primary system would give them more of a voice and increase turnout overall.
The current system has been used for the last century, but the lopsided political profile of modern New York has prompted suggestions to replace it with something similar to the “jungle primary” model used at the state level in California.
Under that system, all registered voters are eligible to vote for candidates from all parties, who appear on a single ballot. The top two vote-getters then advance to the general election, even if they are both from the same party.
The commission said on Wednesday that it planned to introduce several other ballot initiatives in November, including a measure aimed at curbing City Council members’ power to block new housing, as well as a proposal to move local elections to even years to align with presidential elections. In its report earlier this month, the commission said that proposal could increase voter participation even more than an open primary.
Liam Stack is a Times reporter who covers the culture and politics of the New York City region.
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