Donor Network, and the state voter file. The analysis previously identified stark gaps in racial representation.





"Women have always been underrepresented at every level," said David McLennan, a visiting professor of political science at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the author of the 2015 report "The Status of Women in North Politics."

"Really, it hasn't changed a whole lot in the past 20 years," he said.

As McLennan noted in his report, the state saw some gains in the number of women serving elected and appointed offices in the 1980s and 1990s, but that progress has stalled in more recent years. Statewide, women make up less than 25 percent of all elected and appointed offices, according to the report.

In terms of gender representation among county commissioners, North Carolina hasgone backwards in the past decade. In 2005, women made up about 20 percent of county commissioners, a number that has since dropped three percentage points.

This lack of representation means that for many years, in many counties across North Carolina, women have not been involved in deciding critical local issues like setting property tax rates, allocating funds to build and maintain schools and determining county budget priorities.

"These elected officials make decisions that have consequences over people's everyday lives in ways large and small," said Brenda Carter, director of the Reflective Democracy Campaign.

"By not having this political decision making power distributed more equitably, certain life experiences are not represented."

Even fewer women of color

Women of color are even more dramatically underrepresented on North Carolina's county commissions. While they account for