In the News
July 19, 2024
This article by Jamil Ragland, published by CT News Junkie, features RepresentWomens's ranked choice voting research. Read an excerpt below.
Victoria Pelletier, a council member for the city of Portland, Maine, and the national partnerships manager for RepresentWomen, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring gender-balanced representation in elected and appointed government positions, described how the implementation of ranked-choice voting changed the makeup of Portland’s city council.
Portland approved ranked-choice voting for all municipal elections in 2020. Prior to the new voting system, Portland had three women on its nine-person city council. In the first election after ranked-choice voting was implemented, that number doubled to six women.
“[The council] right now is women-led for the first time in our city’s history,” she said. “Every district we have is represented by a woman, and last year we had our first all-women committee. Most of us won our races against incumbents or others who ran before in the past. Ranked-choice voting has really helped the council diversify, as we now have more women of color, and it’s been a huge benefit for our city in getting more first-time candidates, more people who want to help their community who don’t look like what you would think of as a typical elected official become elected.”
Read the complete article here.
