Are Women Pawns in the Political Game? Evidence from Elections to the Spanish Senate

This paper investigates the potential existence of a gender bias in political parties-nomination strategies. For this purpose we use data from elections to the Spanish Senate, where candidates are listed in the ballot in alphabetical order, and order in the ballot affects votes. The evidence in this paper suggests that, in the absence of political competition, parties do not nominate the best available female candidates. Instead, parties select female candidates based on their last name, taking into account how their presence in the list affects male candidates-possibilities of success and gender statistics. Finally, to avoid political parties exploiting order in the ballot to favor particular candidates we propose to adopt ballot ordering rotation.