Election System Case Studies

Deep dives into the consequences of changing the electoral system in specific jurisdictions, commissioned by cities and advocacy groups exploring electoral alternatives.

Reports

• Top 100 city council structures

  Data & Democracy Lab

  20 July 2025

  For the top 100 cities by population, what system of city governance do they use, and what system of election accompanies it? View the data.

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  Study of the 2024 STV City Council Election in Portland, Oregon

  MGGG

  01 May 2025

  The Data and Democracy lab is excited to announce the release of a report on the 2024 STV City Council Election in Portland, Oregon. In November 2022, voters in Portland, Oregon approved an overhaul to their system of election to use STV or “single transferable vote.” We analyze the mechanics of the STV election to explain that the voting system played a direct role in securing strong representation for communities of color, while several other popular systems of election would have delivered different results when faced with identical voter preferences.

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  Comparing Electoral Systems for the Massachusetts Legislature

  MGGG

  10 March 2025

  We are proud to announce the release of a new modeling and research report, in partnership with New America, a public policy think tank with a strong profile in the democracy space. Together, we studied the possible implications of systems change in the way the Massachusetts legislature is elected.

  We have applied a suite of statistical models to test alternative electoral systems, with a particular focus on STV — multi-member districts using ranked choice voting.

• Modeling electoral dynamics for the Portland, Oregon city council

  MGGG

  21 September 2024

  This study aims to understand the representational outcomes likely under the new STV system in Portland, OR, with particular attention to the potential for electing POC-preferred candidates. We also seeks to give recommendations for political organizers including strategic decisions about how many candidates to run and how best to tailor mobilization efforts to maximize their effectiveness.

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  Modeling the FRA

  MGGG

  06 June 2023

  We’re delighted to share a study entitled Modeling the Fair Representation Act, undertaken in partnership with FairVote, which has some surprising findings!

  The Fair Representation Act is model legislation that calls for members of the House of Representatives to be elected from multi-member districts, favoring districts that elect three or five members. This means that a state like Florida, with 28 seats in the House, would need to be divided up into five 5-member districts and one 3-member district. Ranked-choice voting would then be used in each of these districts to send representatives to Washington.

• Analysis of County Commission Elections in Yakima County, WA

  MGGG

  01 January 2020

  We consider several possible remedies for the exclusion of candidates of choice for minority voters in Yakima’s county commission, including several ways to draw majority-minority districts in a 3-district system. We find that ranked choice voting, rather than the use of majority-minority districts, is likely to provide the most effective and long-lasting opportunity for Hispanic and Native voters to elect their candidates of choice. Download the report here.

• STV Reports in the Pacific Northwest

  MGGG

  23 July 2021

  A collection of reports for analyzing alternative election systems for the Oregon Legislature, Washington Legislature, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Salem-Keizer, Chelan County, Pierce County, Tukwila, Wenatchee, and Portland.

• Election Reform in Lowell, MA

  MGGG

  21 October 2019

  Two years ago, the City of Lowell was sued because its system of election was said to prevent minority communities from being represented in city government. For example, even though there are 9 members of the City Council—and nearly half of Lowell’s population is Asian or Hispanic—there have only been 2 people of color elected to the City Council in 20 years!

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  Study of Reform Proposals for Chicago City Council

  MGGG

  15 April 2019

  Many observers agree that the Chicago City Council ward system suffers from problems of gerrymandering, intense segregation, vestiges of machine politics, and inefficiency. In our latest report, we apply mathematical models to analyze Chicago’s current ward plan and compare several reform proposals to address its problems. Our findings strongly support a transition to multimember wards with ranked choice voting to secure and sustain fair representation.

• Study of voting systems for Santa Clara, CA

  MGGG

  01 February 2018

  We analyze geography, demographics, and voting patterns in Santa Clara, CA in order to compare the likely performance of various systems of electing members of the City Council. We find that either citywide at-large transferable voting or a custom transferable voting plan as the best remedy for the alleged CVRA violations in Santa Clara City Council elections. Download the report here.