Good morning. It’s Friday. We’ll look at early voting in New York City, which begins on Saturday, and what it might mean for the race for mayor. We’ll also get details on the indictments that have cast a dark cloud over professional basketball.
Election-related predictions are notoriously risky, but here’s one: More votes for mayor will be cast early this year than in 2021, the last time New York City chose a mayor. Nine days of early voting begin on Saturday. You should look up your early voting polling place online. Where you vote early may not be where you would vote on Election Day. Saturday will be not only be a first — the first day of early voting; it will be a last: the last day for voter registration before Election Day. Given that an unusually large number of voters registered just before the June primary, the question is: Will that happen again? And, given that the share of voters who cast ballots in the primary in June — and who had not voted in a recent mayoral contest — increased, election-watchers will be looking to see how many people are now voting for the first time. One more thing about Saturday. It will also be the last day you can ask for a mail-in ballot online or by mail. You can still apply in person at your county board of elections until Monday, Nov. 3. Now, about that prediction on early voting. Far more votes were cast early in 2024 than in 2021, but 2024 was a presidential election year. For the June primary this year, just over 34.5 percent of the ballots were cast early and in person, or roughly one for every 2.9 votes. Another 3.6 percent of the ballots were mailed in early, according to NYCVotes, the voter outreach unit of the city’s Campaign Finance Board. That was more than twice the 18.8 percent of early votes cast in the 2021 primary. In the 2021 general election, the percentage was smaller — only 14.8 percent, or about one for every seven votes. Jarret Berg, a co-founder of VoteEarlyNY, said he expects an uptick in early voting this time around because the campaign for mayor has what he calls the six Cs — a competitive contest with compelling candidates and collective concern. “That’s the idea that we’re all in this moment and this election actually matters, so people will be motivated to show up on a chilly October weekend when they could be doing pumpkin patch stuff,” he said. Endorsement excitementFor all the excitement the race had already generated, there was another twist that could affect turnout. On Thursday, Mayor Eric Adams, who dropped out of a contest he could not win, moved to make victory seem less of a sure thing for Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee and front-runner. Adams endorsed Andrew Cuomo, who lost to Mamdani in the Democratic primary in June but continued his campaign as a third-party candidate. Adams apparently agreed to let bygones be bygones. Just last month, he called Cuomo “a snake and a liar.” But they were all smiles at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday. Cuomo went there from the mayoral debate that evening and caught the end of the New York Knicks’ season opener with the mayor, who had not only been there for the tipoff but had appeared on the Knicks’ pregame show. There, he joked that he was endorsing the Knicks’ star guard, Jalen Brunson, to succeed him. It’s not clear whether the mayor’s actual endorsement will help or hurt Cuomo. The former governor jumped 10 points in the polls after Adams suspended his campaign, suggesting that Cuomo had already won over most of Adams’s supporters. Cuomo has trailed Mamdani by double digits. Mamdani dismissed the endorsement, saying in a statement that it confirmed “what we’ve long known: Andrew Cuomo is running for Eric Adams’s second term.” Ester Fuchs, the director of the “Who’s on the Ballot” project, which works to provide voters with tools for making informed choices at the polls, noted that Adams’s name would still appear on the ballot because he suspended his campaign too late for it to be removed. Also still on the ballot is Jim Walden, who dropped out last month polling a distant fifth. And also …The race for mayor has gotten most of the attention, but it’s not the only contest on the ballot. All 51 City Council seats will be voted on. (Sone are unopposed; the big races were in the June primary.) Races for public advocate and city comptroller will also be decided, and two district attorneys are running for re-election — Alvin Bragg in Manhattan, a Democrat who is facing two opponents, and Eric Gonzalez in Brooklyn, who is running unopposed. And then there’s the other side of the ballot, which has five citywide questions and a statewide measure. “You need to go into the voting booth prepared, because most of them never mean what you think — they’re worded in the negative so you think you’re answering ‘yes’ when that’s really opposing something you want to be in favor of,” Fuchs said. “These are no exception.” The five citywide proposals were written by a Charter Revision Commission set up by Adams. At least three of the commission’s proposals — Nos. 2, 3 and 4 — could reduce the City Council’s power. The Council sees them as a power grab by the mayor and developers that could take away community feedback on projects that could change the size and shape of neighborhoods. WEATHER Expect a sunny sky and a high temperature near 60. At night, it will be clear, and the temperatures will drop to the mid-40s. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect through Nov. 1 (All Saint’s Day). The latest Metro news
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A pair of indictments unsealed in Brooklyn federal court have cast a dark cloud over professional basketball just as the N.B.A. season is beginning. Four of my colleagues — Santul Nerkar, Maria Cramer, Tania Ganguli and Jonah E. Bromwich — write that one case accused an N.B.A. player and a former coach of trading inside information on a series of games to win hundreds of thousands of dollars on bets with sports betting companies. In the other case, Chauncey Billups, the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, was charged with participating in rigged poker games organized by Mafia families that cheated unwitting victims out of at least $7 million. That case was a sign a sign that organized crime is alive and well, if less visible than it once was. The indictment in the poker case charged 32 men and said 11 of them were leaders, members or associates of the Genovese, Gambino, Bonanno and Lucchese crime families. METROPOLITAN DIARY Houdini’s Grave
Dear Diary: I had 72 hours to spend in N.Y.C. I wanted to visit Houdini’s grave I brought a rock From his hometown in Wisconsin I intended on putting it on his tombstone I ended up occupied in TriBeCa And never made it to Queens I hope you’ll pardon my absence With the realization that this time It wasn’t in the cards — Danny Klecko Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Steven Moity and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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