Shawdesh Desk: The Feb. 2 special election for City Council District 24 will be the first to utilize ranked choice voting, a voting system designed to give constituents more power when choosing their representative.

The position became vacant after former Councilmember Rory Lancman resigned to begin a new post as special counsel for ratepayer protection with the Governor’s Office. The winning candidate will serve in the role until Dec. 31, 2021.

The candidates vying for the seat are activist Moumita Ahmed; real estate agent Michael Brown; former City Councilmember James Gennaro; Queens Democratic District Leader Neeta Jain; New American Voter Association Political Action Committee President Dilip Nath; Internal Revenue Service employee Mujib Rahman; FoodtoEat founder Deepti Sharma; and Queens County Women’s Bar Association President Soma Syed.

See how they answered a Queens Chronicle questionnaire, on 22 issues above, and find their profiles at qchron.com.

The ranking system, also referred to as instant runoff voting, allows voters to choose up to five of the eight candidates and place them in order of preference. Voters don’t have to use all five voting slots — they can vote for just one candidate, as in prior elections, if they should choose.

Rank the Vote NYC, an organization created in 2019 to educate the city about the process, described the process as:

• 1st Choice: the candidate you love;

• 2nd choice: the candidate you like;

• 3rd or 4th choice: the candidate you like slightly less; and

• 5th choice: the candidate you can stand.

The leading candidate must have reached at least 50 percent of the vote to win the position. If no candidate reaches that threshold, the candidate with the least amount of votes will be removed from the ballot and the votes will be recounted. This time, ballot counters will add in the “second-choice” votes of those voters who had chosen the kicked-off candidate as their first preference.

The runoffs will continue as such, eliminating the candidate with the least amount of votes each round, until one candidate receives at least half of the votes.

Early voting for the special election ends on Jan. 31, but the Board of Elections will still accept mail-in ballots. Mailed ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day.

Those who prefer to vote in person on Feb. 2 can find their poll site at findmypollsite.vote.nyc.