Men, Women, and the BallotWoman Suffrage in theUnited States

Woman surage led to the greatest enfranchisement in the history of the United States.Before World War I, however, surage states remained almost exclusively conned to theAmerican West. The reasons for this pioneering role of the West are still unclear. Studyingthe timing of woman surage adoption at state level, we nd that states in which women werescarce (the West) enfranchised their women much earlier than states in which the sex ratiowas more balanced (the rest of the country). High sex ratios in the West, that is high ratios ofgrantors to grantees, reduced the political costs and risks to male electorates and legislators ofextending the franchise. They are also likely to have enhanced female bargaining power andmay have made woman surage more attractive in the eyes of western legislators that soughtto attract more women to their states. Our nding of a reduced-form inverse relationshipbetween the relative size of a group and its success in securing the ballot may be of use alsofor the study of other franchise extensions and for inquieries into the dynamics of politicalpower sharing more generally.