Cambridge, Massachusetts

From FairVote

Ranked choice voting (RCV) is used to conduct municipal elections in Cambridge, Massachusetts with a notable impact on politics and elections. Cambridge uses no wards or districts, and it is spared the expense of administering primary or runoff elections, as the entire election happens on a single ballot.

Cambridge regularly elects historically underrepresented candidates to positions on its city council, with more African Americans, women, and other underrepresented groups having the power to elect candidates of choice. In fact, analysis of ballot image data shows that over 99% of voters saw their first, second, or third choice elected to office.

Cambridge, Massachusetts has used the at-large form of ranked choice voting, an American form of proportional representation, to elect its City Council and School Committee since 1941. Cambridge adopted ranked choice voting at a time when more than two-dozen cities across the United States, including New York, Cincinnati, and Cleveland, used RCV to elect city councils and other positions in local government.

Many of the cities that adopted RCV in that era did away with it due to changes in voting technology and the increased ability of racial minorities to get elected under RCV, but the system remains in Cambridge. 

Ranked choice voting allows groups of like-minded voters to elect representatives in proportion to their share of the population, and has ensured fair representation of the city's political and ethnic minority groups for over 70 years. In February 2014, FairVote published a report on the effects this system had on the city's elections in 2013, and an op-ed in the Cambridge Chronicle discussing the use of this form of fair representation voting in the city. 

Women's Representation

The implementation of ranked choice voting has allowed women to achieve much greater representation in Cambridge than in other methods of election. Between 1997 and 2001, the City Council and School Committee had female representation between 1/3 and 2/3 of each body.

Representation of women in 4 Massachusetts City Councils in 2008
% women in City Council

Cambridge 33% 
Somerville 18%
Medford 29%
Worcester 27%

Representation of People of Color

The use of choice voting in Cambridge, MA has enabled racial minorities to better succeed in local elections by lowering the threshold for election. Since 1980, when the African-American population crossed 10% of the town's total population, members of the African-American community have been consistently elected to the city council and school committee. Also as a result of ranked choice voting and its promotion of coalition-building, although only 10% of the population, in recent years African-Americans have been able to hold more than one seat on each board at time.

Voter Satisfaction