The challenge
In the United States, those who are elected often do not reflect the gender and ethnicity of their constituents, and minority women are not well served by single-member districts using plurality or majority runoff elections.
The case
San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro adopted the Alternative Vote, also called ranked-choice voting, under which voters can rank candidates in order of preference. Sarah John, Haley Smith and Elizabeth Zack compared these cities with similar Bay Area cities that kept plurality or runoff systems, including San Jose, Alameda, Richmond and Santa Clara, using a difference-in-differences design on local elections from 1995 to 2014. Holding other variables constant, the probability of a female candidate winning increased from 40.2 percent to 44.6 percent after adoption, while in the control cities it decreased from 39.8 percent to 28.6 percent; for female candidates of color it rose from 20.4 to 21.6 percent, against a fall from 19.2 to 6.6 percent in control cities. The percentage of candidates of color rose from 17.2 to 25.6 percent, but a review by New America notes the study found no increase in women candidates.
Why the results were mixed
New America concludes that evidence on ranked-choice voting is 'limited, but mainly promising' for women and people of color and that more data is needed; lead author Sarah John was previously research director at FairVote, a non-profit that advocates electoral reform.
Sources
- John, S., Smith, H., & Zack, E. (2018). The alternative vote: Do changes in single-member voting systems affect descriptive representation of women and minorities? Electoral Studies, 54, 90–102.
- John, S. (24 July 2018). The Alternative Vote can increase representation of women and people of color in US elections. LSE USAPP blog.
- New America. What we know about ranked-choice voting: Electoral outcomes.
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