Op-ed: How to Create Gender-Balanced Governance in the US

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Women’s underrepresentation at all levels of government is a persistent problem in the United States. RepresentWomen’s research shows that although we have made progress towards parity, this progress is slow and inconsistent, meaning we are unlikely to reach gender balance within our lifetimes. Increasing and sustaining women’s leadership in elected office requires us to remove the barriers women candidates and legislators face. This drives our research at RepresentWomen to identify the barriers and system-level solutions we can implement to create a more representative, gender-balanced democracy.

RepresentWomen’s latest brief, “Proportional Ranked Choice Voting: Promoting Fair Elections and Removing Barriers for Women in U.S. Politics,” shows that a fair voting system, such as proportional ranked choice voting (PRCV), is one of the best ways to accelerate the pace of change toward gender parity in politics. PRCV elevates historically overlooked and underfunded candidates by increasing competition, allowing for new candidate entry, decreasing polarization, and encouraging issue-focused campaigns. Importantly, PRCV can replace our antiquated, winner-take-all system with one that yields more proportional outcomes. It is the only form of proportional representation that is compatible with all U.S. elections, both partisan and nonpartisan.

Read the full article here.