Abstract

Women may have broken the glass ceiling in terms of appointments or election to the highest courts in the U.S. but barriers still exist. In this study, we explore whether voters who have the opportunity to select state supreme court justices account for gender composition when deciding whether to support a female candidate. We test this proposition using data from the Judicial Elections Database Initiative and two online experiments. Our own analysis across both the real-world elections and our experiments reveals that voters are not significantly affected by gender diversity on the court when deciding whether to support a judicial female candidate, even when those levels are at an extreme.

摘要

在美国最高法院的任命或选举方面，女性可能已经打破了玻璃天花板，但障碍仍然存在。在这项研究中，我们探讨有机会选择州最高法院法官的选民在决定是否支持女性候选人时是否考虑了性别构成。我们使用来自司法选举数据库倡议的数据和两个在线实验来测试这个命题。我们对现实世界选举和我们的实验的分析表明，在决定是否支持司法女性候选人时，选民不会受到法院性别多样性的显着影响，即使这些水平处于极端状态。