RCV America

While 9.3% of Americans are LGBTQ+,¹ the LGBTQ Victory Institute reports that only 0.26% of U.S. elected officials are openly LGBTQ.²

Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) is the change we need to give more choice and more voice to all voters – and to elect more LGBTQ+ Americans to public office in the United States.

7% of the candidates who are elected in races where RCV applies across the U.S. are members of the LGBTQ+ community.³

• 41% of the openly LGBTQ+ leaders elected in races where RCV applies are people of color.
  • Only 28% of candidates in all U.S. general elections are people of color.⁴
• 51% of the LGBTQ+ leaders elected in races where RCV applies are women.
  • According to Represent Women, more women run and win in races where RCV applies.⁵
    • 52% of city councilors in RCV cities are women, while only 33% of city councilors in non-RCV cities are women.
    • 31% of America’s mayors are women, while 37% of mayors in cities with RCV are women.

Notable LGBTQ+ victories with RCV:

• NYC: New York City’s first-ever openly gay Black councilwoman and a record number of openly LGBTQ+ candidates to city council in New York City (Read here)
  
• MN: The first-ever openly transgender black woman to public office in the U.S. who went on to be elected by her peers as City Council President (Watch here)
  
• UT: The first-ever majority LGBTQ+ city council in Salt Lake City (Read here)
  
• ME: A record number of openly LGBTQ+ state legislators (11 in total with a majority being women) in state where RCV is used in state primaries and in general elections for federal races

14 million Americans in 23 states and the District of Colombia are already exercising more choice and more voice by ranking candidates in races from President of the United States to City Council.⁶

The expansion of RCV to more cities, counties, and states is critical to securing better representation at all levels of U.S. government for the LGBTQ+ community.

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1. https://news.gallup.com/poll/656708/lgbtq-identification-rises.aspx ↩︎
2. https://outforamerica.org/ ↩︎
3. When the Victory Fund’s list of openly LGBTQ+ elected officials is cross-referenced with FairVote’s list of jurisdictions and offices in which RCV is or can be used, we discover that 7% of the candidates elected in races in which RCV applies are members of the LGBTQ+ community.  ↩︎
4. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2022-candidates-race-data/ ↩︎
5. https://www.representwomen.org/ranked_choice_voting_dashboard ↩︎
6. https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting-information/#where-is-ranked-choice-voting-used ↩︎