Fusion voting gives a real voice to new parties across the political spectrum
We need to un-ban, re-legalize, restore, and revitalize Fusion Voting. If restored, Fusion Voting could change modern politics at the local, state, and federal level.
Fusion Voting gives power to populists, moderates, and issue-driven voters — average citizens who have been locked out of our current political power structure. That’s why it was banned. Fusion Voting took power away from the two major parties and gave it to average citizens.
The mechanism of Fusion Voting can be confusing. The impact is not. Fusion Voting can fix our politics. If we want average citizens to have an equal voice in our politics, we need to restore Fusion Voting in Wisconsin and across the country.
If you want to understand how Fusion Voting can change our politics, explore the following to learn more:
Why We Need Fusion Voting
Here’s why we need Fusion Voting to help fix our politics.
Campaign finance reform. Data Centers. Property taxes. Gerrymandering. Wake boats. Power lines. Term limits. Fusion Voting can give citizens passionate about these issues the power to elect leaders who will act on their behalf – or risk losing the next election.
Fusion Voting gives power to average citizens by allowing them to be the swing votes in elections, not spoiler or wasted votes, or votes taken for granted by either of the two major parties.
Fusion Voting fosters collaboration across parties, creating incentive to create multi-party coalitions rather than antagonize each other.
Fusion Voting provides power to average citizens that can counter the ultra-wealthy and political elite dominating our politics.
Fusion voting can put us on the path to our democracy serving people, not parties.
Read on to learn how Fusion Voting works.
How Fusion Voting Works
In its simplest explanation, Fusion Voting is an electoral tool that allows cross-party nominations of the same candidate. If Fusion Voting were restored, more than one political party could nominate the same candidate and place them on that party’s line on the election-day ballot. Voters would then choose which party line to vote for, and all votes for a given candidate would be added, or “fused,” across all the parties that nominated that candidate.
Here’s why that’s powerful and will change our politics.
There are two ways Fusion Voting helps third party votes determine the outcome of elections: The Swing Vote or create a Multi-Party Fusion.
The Swing Vote
If the nominee of one of the two major parties is in a close race, a third party can approach that candidate and offer its support if that candidate is willing to adopt their platform. With Fusion Voting, a third party can identify a specific number of voters who they can turn out in the election. In close races, if this number represents the difference between winning and losing, the issue forwarded by the third party suddenly becomes a monumentally important issue in the election.
The difference between just getting a party or organization’s support and having a Fusion Voting bloc is important. In our current political process, a group of voters can say they’ll turn out for an election, but beyond polling it’s not quantifiable exactly how many voters turned out from that group – and exactly who they voted for. With Fusion Voting, the number will be measurable and verifiable based on the ballot tally for the election (see sample ballot).
Fusion Voting shows exactly which issues swung the vote. If Fusion Voting is in place, not only can third parties organize around their values and priorities, but candidates from the major parties will need to actively champion those issues and court the party’s support. No longer will third party and minority voices be ignored. Their votes will no longer be wasted votes or spoiler votes. Their votes will be the difference in the election and the most important voices in the race.
The Multi-Party Fusion
If neither of the major parties are willing to champion a third party’s issue, then it’s time to find other third parties who will join the fight. When two or more third parties are being ignored by the major parties, they can cross-nominate the same candidate. After negotiating on the best candidate, each party puts the name of the same candidate on their ballot. The votes from each party are then added together (see sample ballot). Cross-nomination across multiple third parties offers a true chance of beating the major party candidates.
Examples of How Fusion Voting Will Change Wisconsin Politics
Our politics are dominated by money and two political parties. The only answer to this traditional power brokering is delivering a quantifiable bloc of voters. The ultimate power in any election is the power of the vote. If a party has a thousand, or ten thousand, or a hundred thousand voters, and a politician can see that number on the final tally, win or lose, it will be clear which parties swung the election. Here are two examples.
Solving Data Centers by Creating a Fusion Swing Vote
Suppose a Data Center party, led by a gregarious populist comedian, organizes voters around a platform focused on responsible data-center development, including issues such as local infrastructure, energy use, water consumption, jobs, and community oversight. In a close local, state, or national election, the party could approach candidates and commit its ballot-line support to those who adopt the Data Center platform. Because the party’s votes would appear separately on the election results, candidates and the public could see exactly how many votes the Data Center party delivered.
Data Centers could be the swing vote if Fusion Voting existed. If they delivered 500 votes in a local election, or 50,000 votes in a statewide election, and these votes provided the margin of victory, they have demonstrated the ability to elect – or defeat – any candidate who does not listen to the people. Without Fusion Voting and a clear line on the ballot showing exactly how many voters were delivered, there is no clear political leverage and those voters could be taken for granted. Fusion Voting is the means to show that average votes can defeat special interests.
Ending Gerrymandering through Multi-Party Fusion
Now let’s say there’s an issue that neither of the major parties is willing to address or they have tried to fix and failed. If the main parties can’t get it done, even to the chagrin of their own members and the majority of the population at large, then there needs to be a viable option for a third party candidate to carry the water. Enter Multi-Party Fusion.
Gerrymandering is one such issue. With multi-party fusion, moderate members of both major parties, along with voters organized through existing third parties such as the Libertarian and Green parties, could agree that ending gerrymandering is important enough to justify a temporary political alliance. Although these groups might disagree on most other issues, they could cross-nominate a candidate who supports fair, independent redistricting. By combining their votes on separate party lines, the participating parties could create a competitive coalition focused on one shared goal and demonstrate that cooperation across traditional political divisions can win elections.
If re-legalized, these same Fusion Voting electoral processes will allow any populist movement to unify and organize. Once organized, these third parties have the power through Fusion Voting to counter major parties or monied interests opposing their issue.
Fusion Voting gives power to populists, moderates, and issue-driven voters – average citizens who can organize and deliver votes. It won’t matter how much money a PAC offers a candidate. It won’t matter what their party leadership demands under threat of a primary challenge and no campaign funding. The power of a Fusion Voting bloc of voters is that it delivers an identifiable group of voters who will win elections. Delivering votes – either as Swing Votes or a Multi-Party Fusion – is the leverage and power of Fusion Voting and it will change Wisconsin politics.
Questions:
Q1. What kind of base would a centrist party be able to build?
- Current polling shows that more than a third of voters self-identify as independent of the two major parties and, in most cases, as ideologically centrist. Under fusion voting, a centrist party would need to deliver only a fraction of these voters to make the difference in competitive races, as noted in the 2016 and 2020 examples. Fusion voting allows groups of centrist voters to have a meaningful voice in the outcome of elections.
Q2. Could a centrist party help both ideologically moderate Republican and Democratic candidates?
- Absolutely. Ideologically moderate candidates in both parties will gain from the growth of a credible centrist party. That’s because voters who want to see the government move away from extreme ideology and towards broad-based policies that benefit the state and country as a whole will now have a viable choice at the polls.
Q3. What about the extreme left and right? Won’t they form fusion parties that yank the Democrats further to the left and Republicans further to the right? Won’t that make us more polarized, not less?
- Fusion voting in the 21st Century will actually reduce the extreme partisanship that exists currently between the two major political parties by creating an incentive for political cooperation, collaboration, and compromise through coalition building with voters in the center of the political spectrum. It will, in fact, allow centrists to re-assert themselves by identifying and organizing as a political entity. By having a centrist political party with nominated candidates on the ballot, voters can do more than say they are ideologically moderate–they can actually demonstrate that commitment with their votes. Instead of separating us further politically, that should bring us closer together.
Q4. Will this benefit one major party over another?
- It could benefit or hinder both major parties, depending on the race and the candidates. The biggest beneficiary of fusion voting–both in the short and long term–will actually be our democratic system of government because it will give voters more meaningful choices, increase competition, and in today’s hyper-polarized climate it will empower centrist voters to reassert their influence in both political parties, not just one or the other.
Summary
Unless we change the current rules of the road for the American political highway by re-establishing a pathway for voters down its center, our democratic system of government will be difficult to sustain. Fusion voting is not the only structural political reform needed in Wisconsin and around the country but, in the current moment, it’s the achievable one that we need the most. Download a fact sheet here or see our elevator pitch here.
More reading…
The Case for More Parties: A Path Beyond Our Broken Two-Party System, by Lee Drutman, Boston Review, September 2024.