Free party lists provide the greatest freedom of choice to voters, allowing them to vote for candidates from more than one party. They are also highly cognitive demanding so that voters have incentives to use shortcuts to discriminate among a party´s candidates. This article examines the effect of gender and ballot position of candidates on their number of preference votes in Luxembourg and Switzerland, using individual candidate level-data. Both countries use free party lists with Proportional Representation in national elections, but with electoral lists of different length and format. Our results show no consistent effect of gender on preference voting. Female candidates receive fewer preference votes than their male party mates in Luxembourg and they have an electoral advantage in Switzerland. Conversely, ballot positioning of candidates strongly determines their preference vote share, both in alphabetical and party ordered lists. Our finding also have important implications for electoral design.