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July 10, 2024 ABA Task Force for American Democracy

Fusion Voting Could Lower the Temperature

William A. Galston, Wall Street Journal, October 3, 2023

Summary

Alongside proposals to reform voting methods, such as ranked-choice voting, blanket primaries, and universal voting, fusion voting (i.e., allowing one candidate to be the nominee for more than one political party) should be repopularized as a tool to reduce polarization. Fusion voting would allow an organized group of moderate voters who do not strongly align with either party to determine the outcome of an election by nominating one of the two major party candidates on its own ticket. As Galston explains, “Parties to the left of the Democrats and the right of the Republicans might try to tug the parties in their direction by dangling the prospect of endorsement, but most potential minor-party voters say they would prefer a new party between the Democrats and Republicans, closer to the center of public opinion.”

Fusion voting was common following the Civil War, when minor parties (e.g., Populist and Greenback) could meaningfully impact the election result by throwing their support behind one of the two major parties’ candidates. Around the turn of the century, however, several Republican-led state legislatures banned fusion voting. In 1997, the Supreme Court upheld Minnesota’s ban on fusion voting against a challenge claiming that the law violated First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of association. Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party, 520 U.S. 351 (1997). 

Key Recommendations Made

Adopt fusion voting. In particular, states should repeal any laws which prohibit multiple parties from nominating the same candidate.