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NEW YORK (AP) — New York City is using ranked choice voting in its Democratic mayoral primary election Tuesday, a system that takes some explaining, even for New Yorkers who have used it before.

Voters’ understanding of how ranked choice works could play a role in which candidate comes out on top in a race that features former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, progressive upstart Zohran Mamdani and several other current and former public officials, including City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and City Comptroller Brad Lander, who was arrested last week at an immigration court.

The system is based on a simple premise: Democracy works better if people aren’t forced to make an all-or-nothing choice with their vote.

Rather than pick just one candidate, voters get to rank several in order of preference. Even if a voter’s top choice doesn’t have enough support to win, their rankings of other candidates still play a role in determining the victor.

The system is more complex than a traditional election, making it tough to forecast a winner. It could also take longer to get results.

In New York City’s version, voters get to rank up to five candidates, from first to last, on the ballot.

If one candidate is the first choice of a majority of voters — more than 50% — that person wins the race outright, just like in a traditional election.

If nobody hits that threshold, ranked choice analysis kicks in.

Vote tabulation is done by computer in rounds. After the first round, the candidate in last place — the candidate ranked No. 1 by the fewest amount of people — is eliminated. The computer then looks at the ballots cast by people who ranked that candidate first, to see who they ranked second. Those people’s votes are then redistributed to their second choices.

That process then repeats. As more candidates are eliminated, voters’ third, fourth and even fifth choices could potentially come into play. Rounds continue until there are only two candidates left. The one with the most votes wins.

Eleven candidates are on the ballot in the Democratic mayoral primary. Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams isn’t one of them. He’s a Democrat but is running as an independent. The Republican Party has already picked its nominee, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa.

The computerized process of tabulating votes takes little time, but it doesn’t start right away.

Polls close at 9 p.m. Tuesday. Within a few hours, preliminary results should give a picture of how the candidates are doing based on voters’ first choices.

The ranked choice tabulations, however, won’t start until July 1 because the city needs to wait for the arrival of mail-in ballots.

The July 1 tabulation could potentially give a clear picture of who won, but the result won’t be official. Further rounds of ranked choice analysis will be done as additional absentee ballots come in until the board certifies the election July 15.

This will be the second time New York City has used ranked choice in a mayoral primary. The first time, in 2021, things went haywire when elections officials neglected to clear test data from the tabulation program. That led to an inaccurate vote tally being reported until officials realized the error.

Officials are hoping things go smoother this time.

One benefit is that nobody “wastes” their vote by picking an unpopular candidate as their first choice.

Voters can rank someone they like No. 1, even if they suspect the candidate doesn’t stand a chance. If that person is eliminated, voters still get a say in who wins based on their other rankings.

Another benefit is that it’s tough for someone to get elected without broad support. In a traditional election, it’s possible for someone with fringe political views to win in a crowded field of candidates, even if they are deeply disliked by a majority of voters.

That’s theoretically less likely in a ranked choice system. A candidate could get the largest share of first-choice votes but still lose to someone who is the second or third choice of a large number of people.

The system is tough to grasp. It requires voters to do more research. It also makes races less predictable.

Transparency and trust are also potential problems. Ordinarily, candidates, the public and news organizations can see votes coming in, precinct by precinct, and know exactly who is leading and where their support comes from.

Under the ranked choice system, the process of redistributing votes is done by computer. Outside groups will have a harder time evaluating whether the software sorted the ranked votes accurately.

That’s a challenge for news organizations, like The Associated Press, that analyze vote tallies and attempt to report a winner before the count is complete.

There may be instances when candidates who seem to have a comfortable lead in first-place votes on election night lose because relatively few voters rank them as their second or third choice. That could lead to people questioning the results.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are climbing, and the price of oil is tumbling Monday on growing hopes that Iran will not disrupt the global flow of crude, something that would hurt economies worldwide but also its own, following the United States’ bunker-busting entry into its war with Israel.

The S&P 500 was 0.7% higher in afternoon trading, coming off a week where stock prices had jumped up and down on worries about the conflict potentially escalating. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 269 points, or 0.6%, as of 2 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.8% higher.

The price of oil did jump 4% shortly after trading began Sunday night, a signal of rising worries as investors got their first chance to react to the U.S. bombings. But it quickly erased all those gains and swung to a sharp loss as the focus shifted from what the U.S. military did to how Iran would react.

By Monday afternoon, the price of a barrel of benchmark U.S. oil was down 6.1% at $69.34. Brent crude, the international standard, dropped 5.3% to $71.50 per barrel. That brought oil prices nearly back to where they were before the fighting began over a week ago, when a barrel of U.S. crude was just above $68.

The losses accelerated sharply Monday after Iran announced a missile attack on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which the U.S. military uses. Iran said it matched the number of bombs dropped by the United States on Iranian nuclear sites this past weekend, which could be a potential signal of a desire to deescalate the conflict.

Perhaps most importantly for financial markets, that retaliation did not seem to target the flow of oil. The fear throughout the Israel-Iran war has been that it could squeeze the world’s supply of oil, which would pump up prices for it, gasoline and other products refined from crude.

Iran is a major producer of crude, and it could also try to block the Strait of Hormuz off its coast, through which 20% of the world’s daily oil needs passes on ships.

Several analysts said Iran would likely not close the waterway because Iran itself uses the strait to move its own crude, mostly to China, and it needs the revenue made from such sales of oil.

“It’s a scorched earth possibility, a Sherman-burning-Atlanta move,” said Tom Kloza, chief market analyst at Turner Mason & Co. “It’s not probable.”

Neil Newman, managing director of Atris Advisory Japan, said hope remains that the Israel-Iran war could be a short conflict, with the thinking being “the one big hit by the Americans will be effective and then we’ll get back to sort of business as usual, in which case there is no need for an immediate, panicky type of reaction.”

Of course, not everyone is sure about Iran’s next move.

Andy Lipow, a Houston analyst covering oil markets for 45 years, said countries are not always rational actors and that he wouldn’t be surprised if Tehran lashed out for political or emotional reasons.

“If the Strait of Hormuz was completely shut down, oil prices would rise to $120 to $130 a barrel,” said Lipow, predicting that that would translate to about $4.50 a gallon at the pump and hurt consumers in other ways.

“It would mean higher prices for all those goods transported by truck, and it would be more difficult for the Fed to lower interest rates.”

The Federal Reserve has been hesitant to lower interest rates this year because it’s waiting to see how much President Donald Trump’s tariffs will hurt the economy and raise inflation.

Inflation has remained relatively tame recently, but a rise in oil and gasoline prices would put upward pressure on it. That in turn could keep the Fed on hold because cuts to rates can fan inflation higher, along with giving the economy a boost.

A preliminary report on Monday suggested tariffs are pushing up prices for U.S. businesses, whose overall activity is growing by more than economists expected. The data from the survey “corroborate speculation that the Fed will remain on hold for some time,” according to Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased after Fed Gov. Michelle Bowman said she would support cutting rates at the Fed’s next meeting in just a month, as long as “inflation pressures remain contained.”

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.30% from 4.38% late Friday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed, dropped to 3.82% from 3.90%.

On Wall Street, Elon Musk’s Tesla was the single strongest force pushing the S&P 500 higher after jumping 9.4%. The electric-vehicle company began a test run on Sunday of a small squad of self-driving cabs in Austin, Texas. It’s something that Musk has long been touting and integral to Tesla’s stock price being as high as it is.

Hims & Hers Health tumbled 32.3% after Novo Nordisk said it will no longer work with the company to sell its popular Wegovy obesity drug. Novo Nordisk’s stock that trades in the United States fell 5.7%.

In stock markets abroad, indexes fell modestly across Europe after finishing mixed in Asia. France’s CAC 40 sank 0.7%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.7% for two of the world’s bigger moves.

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Kurtenbach contributed from Bangkok. AP video journalist Mayuko Ono in Tokyo and AP Business Writer Matt Ott in Washington contributed.