Candidate Gender and Voter Choice: Analysis from a Multimember Preferential Voting System

Abstract

Women are greatly underrepresented in elected office. A large literature on the subject has considerably advanced our understanding of this phenomenon, but many questions remain unanswered. Using original aggregate and individual-level data, the authors explore the interplay of candidate gender, partisanship, incumbency, and campaign spending in a multimember preferential voting system. This setting allows unparalleled exploration of the heterogeneous nature of voter decision making. The authors find little evidence for an independent effect of candidate gender on voter choice. Voters do not discriminate against women even in an electoral environment that affords them this opportunity without any cost to their partisan preferences.