Upper East Side City Council Results: Ben Kallos Defends Seat, Keith Powers Wins

Update 12 a.m.: City Councilman Ben Kallos easily defended his seat in the City Council's fifth district, the New York Times and New York 1 reported. Kallos won roughly 75 percent of the vote with 90 percent of the vote counted, according to unofficial results from the New York City Board of Elections. The two challengers, Patrick Bobilin and Gwen Goodwin, captured 7 percent and 14 percent of the vote respectively, according to the BOE.

Keith Powers has won the Democratic Primary for the City Council's fourth district, the New York Times reported. The seat was formerly held by City Councilman Daniel Garodnick. With 92 percent of districts reporting, Powers has about 41 percent of the vote, according to the BOE. Marti Speranza finished in second place with roughly 22 percent of the vote. None of the remaining candidates finished with more than 10 percent of the vote.

Original article below:

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Primary elections for local offices in New York City's will be held Tuesday Sept. 12, meaning that party-affiliated voters get to select which candidates they want to represent their party in the general election in November.

New York City is a Democratic stronghold, meaning whichever candidate claims the Democratic nomination during the primaries often wins the general by a landslide. So if you're registered to vote, don't wait until November's contests.

Polls open at 6 a.m. and close at 9 p.m. Patch will update this article as results are released.

The Upper East Side is represented by two city council districts, both of which have contested primary elections. The elections feature an incumbent attempting to hold off two challengers and a nine-candidate race to replace a term-limited councilman.

(For more Upper East Side news, subscribe to Patch to get a daily newsletter and breaking news alerts.)

Don't know anything about the candidates running for city council in your district? Don't worry, Patch has you covered. Check out Patch's voting guides for council district four and council district five.

City council districts are often oddly-shaped and many New Yorkers probably can't name which district they live in off the top of their heads. There are polling places across each council district; your specific one depends on where you live. To find your polling place, click here and enter your address.

New York City's primaries are also organized by party affiliation — sorry independent voters. Only voters registered as Democrats or Republicans can vote in the respective primary elections. After entering your address on that same website above, under "Primary Election - 09/12/2017," click "Ballot Information" then choose your party. You will see your choices for all available offices.

If you're interested in learning about citywide elections for offices such as the mayor, public advocate and comptroller check out this election guide by Patch.

Experienced voters are sure to notice that the "I Voted" stickers handed out at each polling place feature new designs. More than 10,000 people voted in a campaign organized by the New York City Campaign Finance Board to select a new sticker. More than 700 designs were submitted to the board, which narrowed the vote down to 10 finalists.

Photo by Patch