New York City Council member Brad Lander won the Democratic primary for New York City's comptroller, according to an unofficial vote count posted Tuesday by the city's board of elections.
Mr. Lander was leading Corey Johnson, the city council president, by 51.9% to 48.1%. Mr. Johnson conceded.
Although voting took place June 22, the delayed posting of results was due to New York City using a ranked-choice voting system, the counting of a large amount of absentee ballots and the board of elections mistakenly counting 135,000 sample ballots in the tally for citywide offices, including those of mayor and comptroller.
The city's comptroller is the fiduciary for the five pension funds that comprise the $260.9 billion New York City Retirement System.
There were 10 candidates in the Democratic primary. Democrats account for about 68% of registered voters in New York City, which most likely means Mr. Lander will be the next comptroller.
For the November general election, he will compete against Daby Carreras, a Republican who ran unopposed in his party's primary. He is a private wealth manager at Spartan Capital Securities in New York City.
Scott Stringer, the current comptroller, is limited to two terms and cannot run again. He ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for mayor.
In New York City's ranked-choice system, voters could choose up to five candidates. If a candidate wins a majority in the first round, the election is over.
Otherwise, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated and voters' second choices for that candidate are assigned to the remaining candidates. This process of elimination and reassigning is repeated until one candidate has a majority of votes. Mr. Lander reached a majority of votes in the 10th round of the process.
