Electoral fusion in the United States
Part of the Politics series |
Voting |
---|
Politics portal |
Electoral fusion in the United States is an arrangement where two or more U.S. political parties on a ballot list the same candidate,[1] allowing that candidate to receive votes on multiple party lines in the same election.[2]
Electoral fusion is also known as fusion voting, cross endorsement, multiple party nomination, multi-party nomination, plural nomination, and ballot freedom.[3][4]
Electoral fusion was once widespread in the United States; however, as of 2016, it is only legal in eight U.S. states and is only practiced regularly in New York.
Overview
In 2016, Business Insider wrote: "Fusion voting gives voters a chance to support a major candidate while registering their unhappiness with that candidate's party. A cross-endorsement from a smaller party like the Women's Equality Party can also help inform voters about where candidates stand on certain issues".[5]
In 2019, The Nation wrote: "Fusion is a response to the winner-take-all electoral system. It solves the “wasted vote” or 'spoiler' dilemmas that otherwise plague third parties, and allows citizens who don’t fit neatly into the Democratic or Republican boxes to nevertheless participate constructively in politics".[1]
Before the
After the Civil War, agrarian interest groups and the political parties they founded continued to use fusion balloting to form alliances between third parties and the weaker of the two major parties, usually the Democrats in the West and Midwest.
The People's Party (also known as the Populists) is regarded as the most successful third party of the era.[10] That success produced a counter-reaction from the dominant major parties, who then used state legislatures to enact bans against fusion in the late nineteenth and early 20th century.[7] In northern and western states, fusion was largely banned by Republican-led legislatures. One Republican Minnesota state legislator said: "We don't propose to allow the Democrats to make allies of the Populists, Prohibitionists, or any other party, and get up combination tickets against us. We can whip them single-handed, but don't intend to fight all creation."[11] In southern states, fusion was largely banned by Democrats who supported Jim Crow, in an attempt to prevent political alliances between newly-enfranchised Black voters and poor white farmers.[12]
Most states banned fusion by the early 20th century. South Dakota banned the practice in 1999,[13] Delaware banned it in 2011,[14] and South Carolina banned it in 2022.[15] In Twin Cities Area New Party v. McKenna (1996), the United States Supreme Court ruled that prohibiting electoral fusion does not violate the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.[16]
Electoral fusion was once widespread in the United States; however, as of 2016, it is only legal in eight U.S. states and is only practiced regularly in New York.[2] Fusion as conventionally understood by historians and political scientists is fully legal in two states, Connecticut and New York. It is partially legal in three others: California allows fusion in presidential elections only, and Pennsylvania and Maryland permit it in certain elections, including but not limited to the judiciary.[17][page needed] In Oregon and Vermont, a system of dual-labeling exists, which allows a candidate to list multiple party endorsements on a single line, but disallows the traditional fusion system in which a minor party has its own ballot line and votes are tallied by party.[18] In New Hampshire, fusion is legal in rare cases when primary elections are won by write-in candidates.[19]
In November 2022, the New Jersey Moderate Party filed suit in state court to overturn the state's 1921 ban on fusion voting.[20][needs update]
Historical examples
Presidential elections
In 1872, both the newly formed Liberal Republican Party and the Democratic party nominated the Liberal Republican Horace Greeley as their candidate for President of the United States: "If [the Democratic party] was to stand any chance at all against Grant, it must avoid putting up a candidate of its own who would merely split the opposition vote. It must take Greeley."[21]
In the Presidential election of 1896, William Jennings Bryan was nominated by both the Democratic Party and the Populist Party, albeit with different vice presidential candidates, Arthur Sewall for the Democrats and Thomas E. Watson for the Populists. This election led to the downfall of the Populist Party, especially in Southern states (such as Watson's Georgia, as well as North Carolina and Tennessee) where the Populist party had engaged in electoral fusion or other alliances with Republicans against the dominant Bourbon Democrats.[22][23]
In the 1936 and 1940, the American Labor Party nominated Franklin Roosevelt for president, and in 1944, the Liberal Party of New York cross-nominated Roosevelt, fusing with the ALP. Roosevelt won the state of New York in each election, but in 1940 and 1944 he would not have won New York without the support of votes gained via the fusion parties and their voters.[24]
Donald Trump appeared on the 2016 presidential ballot in California with two ballot labels by his name,[25] as the nominee of both the Republican Party and the American Independent Party, a small far-right party. Trump was the first fusion presidential candidate on the California ballot in at least eighty years.[26]
New York
In 1936, labor leaders in New York City took advantage of fusion and founded the American Labor Party (ALP). Their immediate goal was to provide a way for New Yorkers who despised the Tammany Hall political machine to support Franklin Roosevelt without voting for the Democratic Party. In its first showing at the polls, the party garnered a significant amount of the vote in New York City, but was not important with regard to Roosevelt's victory. In the 1937 election cycle, the ALP built on it past performance by electing members to the city council, and by delivering so many votes to Mayor LaGuardia that the New York Times ran a front page article declaring that the ALP held the balance of power in city and state politics. The importance of the ALP was demonstrated again in 1938 when the party provided the margin of victory for the Democratic candidate for Governor, and in 1940 when the ALP did the same for President Roosevelt. In the 1944 presidential election, fusion provided CIO unions in New York an opportunity to build and back a labor party, an uncommon occurrence in the United States. Labor leaders knew that fusion permitted them to field candidates and win elections on the American Labor Party line in local elections, and to back Democrats in statewide or national races where they did not have the capacity to field successful candidates. Given the presence of fusion in New York, the Greater New York Industrial Union Council (GNYIUC), the CIO's local labor federation in New York, formally affiliated with the party making it the political arm of the New York CIO. This relationship would continue until 1948 when the GNYIUC opted to back Henry Wallace for president, instead of using fusion to back President Truman. This led to internal conflicts within the CIO and ultimately contributed to the decision by the National CIO to revoke the charter of the GNYIUC, thereby ending its relationship with the ALP.[8]
As of 2023, to obtain or maintain automatic ballot access, a party's candidate for Governor of New York in midterm years or President of the United States in presidential years must receive either 130,000 votes or 2% of votes cast (whichever is greater) on that party's line.[citation needed]
Other parties, such as the
In July 2019, the New York Legislature passed a budget bill that included the creation of a Public Campaign Financing Commission, which was given authority to investigate and create rules for
Oregon
Prior to 1958, Oregon practiced a form of fusion that required the state to list multiple nominating parties on the candidate's ballot line.
Pennsylvania
In Pennsylvania, fusion can occur when members of a party write in the name of a member of a different party in a primary election, and secure enough write-in votes to nominate that party's candidate. For example, if Bob Jones is running for school board in a primary election as a Democrat and secures both enough votes from members of his own party as well as enough write-in votes from members of the Republican Party, then electoral fusion occurs, and Bob will appear on the ballot as both a Republican and a Democrat. Similarly, a member of one party may lose their own party's nomination in a primary election but gain enough write-in votes from members of the opposing party to win that party's nomination. For example, in May 2023, Stephen Zappala lost the Democratic primary for Allegheny County District Attorney to challenger Matt Dugan. However, although Zappala is a Democrat, Zappala received the requisite number (500 or more) of write-in votes from Republicans to appear as a Republican on the ballot in November 2023.[31][32] Running on the ballot as a Republican, Zappala won the general election in November 2023, beating challenger Matt Dugan.
Wisconsin
In
See also
- Tactical voting
- Cross-filing
- Apparentment
Articles
- "Political Combinations in Elections". Harvard Law Review. 45 (5). The Harvard Law Review Association: 906–912. March 1932. JSTOR 1332029.
References
- ^ a b Mitchell, Maurice; Cantor, Dan (22 March 2019). "In Defense of Fusion Voting" – via www.thenation.com.
{{cite magazine}}
: Cite magazine requires|magazine=
(help) - ^ a b Abadi, Mark (8 November 2016). "This is why some candidates are listed more than once on your ballot". Business Insider.
- ^ "What is Fusion" (PDF). Oregon Working Families Party. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 April 2012.
- ^ "Brief for appellant: Twin Cities Area New Party vs Secretary of State of Minnesota". Public Citizen Foundation.
- ^ Abadi, Mark. "This is why some candidates are listed more than once on your ballot". Business Insider.
- ^ Brooks, Corey M. (2016). Liberty Power: Anstislavery third Parties and the Transformation of American Politics. University of Chicago Press.
- ^ JSTOR 1860557.
- ^ ISSN 0198-8719.
- ^ Malinowski, Tom (6 July 2022). "A Viable Third Party Is Coming, and It's Starting With a New Jersey Lawsuit". The New York Times.
- ^ Argersinger, Peter H. (1995). The Limits of Agrarian Radicalism: Western Populism and American Politics. University Press of Kansas.
- ISBN 978-0415931434.
- ^ Hunt, James L. (2006). "Fusion of Republicans and Populists". Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press.
- ^ "Loading..." South Dakota Legislature.
- ^ "Bill Detail - Delaware General Assembly". legis.delaware.gov.
- ^ Collins, Jeffrey (2 March 2022). "South Carolina Voting changes unite Democrats, Republicans". AP News.
- ^ "Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party (95–1608), 520 U.S. 351 (1997)". Legal Information Institute/Cornell. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
- ^ Cobble, Steve; Siskind, Sarah (1993). FUSION: MULTIPLE PARTY NOMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES. San Francisco: Center for a New Democracy at the Tides Foundation.
- ^ Adams, Terrence (16 January 2013). "CROSS-ENDORSING CANDIDATES". Connecticut General Assembly Office of Legislative Research. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
- ^ Greene, Rick (17 October 2022). "Your ballot might list the same candidate under two parties. That's allowed under N.H. law". New Hampshire Public Radio.
- ^ Hounshell, Blake (21 November 2022). "Does Fusion Voting Offer Americans a Way Out of the Partisan Morass?". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
- OCLC 336934. p. 338
- ^ "African". History.missouristate.edu. Archived from the original on 7 March 2010. Retrieved 2 July 2010.
- ^ "Senate and House Secured; Republican control in the next Congress assured. The House of Representatives Repub- lican by More than Two – thirds Ma- jority – Possible Loss of a Repub- lican Senator from the State of Washington – Republicans and Pop- ulists Will Organize the Senate and Divide the Patronage". The New York Times. 9 November 1894. Retrieved 26 May 2010.
- ^ Soyer, Daniel (2022). Left in the Center: The Liberal Party of New York and the Rise and Fall of American Social Democracy. Cornell University Press.
- ^ Richard Winger, American Independent Party Formally Nominates Donald Trump and Michael Pence, Ballot Access News (13 August 2016)
- ^ John Myers, Donald Trump will be the nominee of two parties on California's November ballot, Los Angeles Times (15 August 2016).
- ^ "NYS Board of Elections Unofficial Election Night Results". Archived from the original on 20 November 2018. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
- ^ "Governor Cuomo & Legislative Leaders Announce Members of the Public Campaign Financing Commission". Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. 3 July 2019. Archived from the original on 2 August 2019. Retrieved 2 August 2019.
- ^ McKinley, Jesse (23 July 2019). "2 Opposing Political Parties, Fighting for Survival, Sue Cuomo". The New York Times.
- ^ http://www.leg.state.or.us/09reg/measures/sb300.dir/sb326.a.html[permanent dead link]
- ^ Lyons, Kim (19 May 2023). "'Halftime?' Allegheny Co. Dem DA nominee Dugan may face Zappala again in November". Pennsylvania Capital-Star. Retrieved 20 May 2023.
- ^ "Zappala receives enough write-in votes to run as Republican". CBS News. 23 May 2023. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
- Milwaukee Journal1 November 1918; p. 9, col. 2