Vote Run Lead Launches New Tool Critical to Understanding Representation and the Importance of State Legislative Races

New Vote Run Lead ‘State of My Democracy’ Data Visualization Tool, Made Possible by Pivotal Ventures, A Melinda French Gates Company, Shows Which States Need to Elect More Women and Women of Color

Vote Run Lead, the nonprofit that trains women to run for political office and win, is launching a new data visualization tool called the State of My Democracy, that shows the state of democracy and women’s representation in America’s statehouses. This tool is available online at stateofmydemocracy.org. The tool’s use is essential prior to the midterm elections in that it shows the huge disparity of women, and women of color, in state legislatures. In fact, every state in the nation except Nevada, is not reflective of their population with representation.

“Women make up 51 percent of the population in the U.S., yet our state legislatures are nearly 70% men,” said Erin Vilardi, CEO of Vote Run Lead. “Due to recent rulings by the Supreme Court, our state legislatures are becoming one of the most powerful bodies of government that will impact every part of our daily lives, yet, they are not reflective of their communities - especially for women and women of color. In fact, women on average only make up 28 percent of Congress, and only 31 percent of state legislators, but a closer look shows that women of color and other ethnicities are especially underrepresented in the states. Many states have no women of color in their state’s senate. We are launching the State of My Democracy Data Visualization Tool so that voters can see the representation in their state and make informed decisions about who and how they will vote, and maybe decide that they, too, need to run.”

The State of My Democracy Data Visualization Tool allows exploration of how many women - of various backgrounds - are represented in each state’s legislature, compared to their share of the state’s population. Users of the tool can explore state houses and senates across all 50 states, in a map or chart view, and see an illustration of each state’s representation gap, with side-by-side comparisons of states across race and ethnicity, and a true picture of how many women need to be elected to office to meet parity in representation.

To create the State of My Democracy Visualization Tool, Vote Run Lead hired Graphicacy, a data visualization company who has worked with Johns Hopkins University, USAID and others. Vote Run Lead is especially honored and proud that support and funding for the tool also came from Pivotal Ventures, a company founded by Melinda French Gates to bring more equality and opportunity to people in the U.S. Specifically, in 2019, Melinda French Gates made a $1 billion commitment towards gender equality with a focus on advancing women’s power and influence in the U.S. Vote Run Lead is excited to be one of the recipients of this funding.

Vote Run Lead initially offered a state-level data visualization tool in 2021, which answered the question, “how long will it take for states to be a reflective democracy with at least 51 percent of women in the state legislature?” In 2021, that tool showed that equal representation would take a few decades to hundreds of years to achieve. To help with this effort, Vote Run Lead kicked off a program to make America's legislatures majority female, called RUN/51. Today, one year later, 177 Vote Run Lead women are running for state legislative seats across 33 states.

This new State of My Democracy Visualization Tool takes a deep dive into understanding how many women and women of color must be elected to the legislature to see a truly reflective democracy. The tool allows voters everywhere to understand how their state and community are represented - and make choices about how they will vote as well as helping candidates see opportunities and have data to help them run and win.

A recent Vote Run Lead poll conducted by Avalanche Insights supports that American voters want more equal representation in our government with 85 percent of women and 71 percent of men who say our country would be better if more women were elected.

To learn more about Vote Run Lead and the State of My Democracy Visualization Tool, visit voterunlead.org or stateofmydemocracy.org.

About Vote Run Lead.org

Vote Run Lead.org trains women to run for office and win. Vote Run Lead is a non-profit training powerhouse that is focusing on improving women’s representation in America’s state houses. Vote Run Lead, founded by Erin Vilardi, formerly of The White House Project, seeks to unleash the political power of women as voters, candidates and leaders to create an equitable democracy. Vote Run Lead has trained more than 55,000 women to run for office and has seen an unprecedented number of women signing up to be trained in the past several years. To learn more, visit Vote Run Lead.org or follow on Twitter, Facebook and/or Instagram @VoteRunLead.

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