The following memo presents an update to our 2020 analysis of voting systems in the U.S. and their impact on women’s representation. 

Overall, we have found that women continue to fare better in jurisdictions that use ranked choice voting than in cities with plurality voting systems. Of the 30 cities that use ranked choice voting to elect their executives (mayors), 12 (40%) are currently represented by women. In the 41 cities that use ranked choice voting to elect their legislatures (councils, boards), almost half of all electeds (137 of 282, or 49%) are women.

RCV remains one of the most promising tools for advancing women’s representation in the United States.

For more information about our work and the resources we provide, please contact our team at [email protected].

Released: January 23, 2023

Executive Summary: 

RCV is one of the most promising tools for advancing women’s representation in the United States.  Of the 30 cities that use ranked choice voting to elect their executives (mayors), 12 (40%) are currently represented by women. In the 41 cities that use ranked choice voting to elect their legislatures (councils, boards), almost half of all electeds (137 of 282, or 49%) are women. 

Systems-level strategies, like RCV, advance gender parity by creating a level playing field for all candidates and eliminating the opportunity barriers that exist under plurality voting. Though women are underrepresented at every level of government in the U.S., holding less than one-third of all elected positions, women in ranked choice jurisdictions are better represented.  

Ranked Choice Voting creates more opportunities for women to run and win by:

1. Mitigating vote splitting and the spoiler effect. Women, more often than men, are told to “wait their turn” and are viewed as less electable by party leaders in plurality elections. In RCV elections, multiple women can run without splitting the vote and spoiling an election. 
2. Increasing campaign civility. Positive campaigning benefits both candidates and voters. When candidates are less focused on launching or defending negative attacks from competitors, they can spend more time campaigning on issues that matter to voters to earn broader support. 
3. Removing a need for costly runoff elections. Runoffs are often expensive and lead to lower voter turnout. RCV mitigates this by acting as an “instant runoff” where voters’ second and third choices are counted immediately. For women candidates, who often need to outraise men to win, RCV helps them focus on what matters most: connecting with voters.
4. Increasing candidate-voter engagement and voter turnout. In RCV, candidates are incentivized to seek broader support in the form of first-, second-, and third-choice votes. This approach results in voters feeling they have more of a stake in the election, boosting turnout. 

Ranked choice voting advances women’s representation at the state and city level: 

Women’s Representation in RCV Cities

The impact of RCV on women’s representation is best demonstrated at the local level, which has long been the testing ground for new voting systems. Of the 30 mayors in RCV cities today, 12 (40%) are women, nine are people of color (30%), and four are women of color (13%). In city councils, 137 of 282 RCV seats (49%) are held by women, 96 by people of color (34%), and 55 (20%) by women of color. Comparatively, women held 32% of all local offices as of March 2022. 

Women’s Representation in RCV States

RCV is currently used at the state-level in two states, Maine and Alaska. Maine became the first state to use ranked choice voting in 2018. That same year, Janet Mills became the first woman governor of Maine and first governor elected by ranked choice voting following the state’s first ranked choice primary. In other statewide offices, there was a 6.4% increase in women candidates and 9.3% increase in women winners from the 2014/16 non-RCV elections to the 2018/20 RCV elections. Correspondingly, Maine’s parity score in our annual Gender Parity Index has steadily risen since RCV was first introduced. Alaska’s first use of RCV took place in 2022.

View the Memo 

Released: September 2022

In 2022, we released a report on the outcome of the 2021 elections in New York City. RepresentWomen partnered with The New Majority NYC (formerly 21 in '21) to study 1) the impact of term limits, matching funds, ranked choice voting, and candidate-focused strategies on women's representation, 2) how these factors worked together to bring NYC a majority-women council for the first time in history, and 3) what it will take to maintain and build upon this success story in the future. 

View the Report Executive Summary

A thriving democracy is within our reach, but our rules and systems must change to acknowledge the unique barriers that women with intersecting identities experience in the United States. Our nation’s rich diversity will be reflected in our government when all women have practical and fair opportunities to participate in American politics.

Our 2021 report, Exploring First-Generation Underrepresentation: How American Political Systems Impact Immigrant Women’s Political Engagement presents an introduction to the topic of first-generation representation in America, the barriers first-generation women face as candidates, and how well-designed structural reforms can help to make the political process more accessible for all. 

https://representwomen.app.box.com/embed/s/8myc4543ozuvcem0gikwhemwpomj74bb?sortColumn=date&view=list8005500

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For additional accessible formats (e.g. large print, braille), please contact us by email at [email protected]. 

A thriving democracy is within our reach, but our rules and systems must change to acknowledge the unique barriers that women with intersecting identities experience in the United States. Our nation’s rich diversity will be reflected in our government when all women have practical and fair opportunities to participate in American politics.

Our 2021 report, Intersectional Disempowerment: Exploring Barriers for Disabled Female Political Candidates in the United States presents an introduction to the topic of Disabled women's political participation in America, the barriers they face as candidates, and how well-designed structural reforms can help to make the political process more accessible for all. 

https://representwomen.app.box.com/embed/s/50eo6nxrmhh9tltvf8nkuvv9xqomt8nm?sortColumn=date&view=list8005500

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For additional accessible formats (e.g. large print, braille), please contact us by email at [email protected]. 

Released: June 2021

In 2021, we published an article in Politics and Governance on the history and impact of single- and multi-winner ranked choice voting on women’s representation in the U.S. In addition to revisiting some of the research from our 2016 and 2020 reports, this article allowed us to dig deeper into the available literature on ranked choice voting and identify knowledge gaps that should be addressed in future research. 

Read Our 2021 Article

To quantify progress towards gender parity in elected and appointed office, RepresentWomen developed the Gender Parity Index (GPI). Each year, a Gender Parity Score and grade is calculated for each of the 50 states and for the United States as a whole. The Gender Parity Score reflects women's recent electoral successes at the local, state, and national levels on a scale of 0 (if no women were elected to any offices) to 100 (if women held all elected offices). The key advantage of the GPI is that it enables comparisons to be made over time and among states. 

Download Report

In the past few decades there has been heightened interest in and scholarship in incarceration and the incarcerated population in the United States. However, much of this research has surrounded male incarceration rates, often overlooking the growing number of incarcerated women. While male incarceration rates have steadily declined in the past decade with the help of public scrutiny, women have become the fastest-growing incarcerated population. Between 1980 and 2017, the population of incarcerated women has risen by 750% (The Sentencing Project, 2019). Along with the rapid growth, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women face unique challenges in re-entering society and regaining voting rights all of which impact their political representation. To learn more about incarcerated women and political representation read our 2020 brief below. 

https://representwomen.app.box.com/embed/s/gyd1lk7k2hwvmxzsnoht7he14n80sluw?sortColumn=date&view=list8005500

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infogram_0_3f7623fc-ab02-4e4d-aa57-ef22c97bea96Voting Rights of Incarcerated ppl by Statehttps://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed.js?Irktext/javascript

Incarceration impacts political representation by:

• Requiring formerly incarcerated individuals to pay legal financial obligations (LFOs) before being re-enfranchised. This pay-to-vote system is particularly difficult for formerly incarcerated women who face higher rates of unemployment both before and after incarceration than men. 
• Prison gerrymandering counts incarcerated individuals as residents of the prison's district rather than their home communities in the decennial census. This impacts both the funding and representation given to both the prison and home communities. 

Further research and resources on the topic can be found from allies in the field at: the Vera Institute of Justice, the Prison Policy Initiative, the Sentencing Project, and the following podcast with Michele Goodwin. 

As research develops around women's political representation it often focuses on national and state levels, sometimes at the expense of other levels of elected representation. One such example of this data gap is women's current and historic political representation and voice within Tribal Nations. RepresentWomen has published preliminary research on a small number of Indigenous Nations in North America; and is in the midst of conducting an investigation into women's representation in the 576 federally recognized Tribal Nations in the 48 contiguous states and the 229 federally recognized Alaskan Native Nations and Corporations. As always RepresentWomen remains culturally humble in our approach to studying other cultures and systems of governance and are open and eager to partner with those who have more expertise. 

infogram_0_e465f915-6cc0-4b0c-a4a0-e841b5ad5a032020 Representation - Tribal Nations - Briefhttps://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed.js?8CEtext/javascript

Released: July 2020

Our 2020 ranked choice voting report, "In Ranked Choice Elections, Women WIN" provides a thorough review of ranked choice voting in the United States and how it is impacting women's representation in the cities that have implemented it. From 2010-2019, 19 cities and counties used ranked choice voting to elect their city officials, including 13 mayors and the city councilmembers in 14 jurisdictions. In that decade, women won 48% of all municipal elections.

Read Our 2020 Report