Let the Voters Choose Women

We study the effectiveness of a novel measure to reduce gender gaps in political empowerment: double preference voting conditioned on gender, coupled with gender quotas on candidate lists. This policy was introduced in 2012 in Italian municipal elections. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that the share of female councilors rises by 18 percentage points. The result is mainly driven by an increase in preference votes cast for female candidates, suggesting a salient role of double preference voting. We also detect changes in voters' behavior in casting preferences in higher level elections, suggesting the presence of spill-over effects of the double preference voting policy.