Plaintiffs from a local advocacy group defended fusion voting, the banned practice which allows majority and minority parties to simultaneously nominate a political candidate, at a University of Wisconsin-Madison conference Nov. 14.
Bipartisan group United Wisconsin aims to overturn an 1897 ban on fusion voting in Wisconsin, arguing the ban violates a state “equal protection” law. The lawsuit was filed on April 28th of this year in the Dane County Circuit Court, and United Wisconsin is being represented by Law Forward. They said if the case succeeds, minor parties will be able to regain influence in elections without promoting alternate candidates.
Fusion voting allows a candidate’s name to appear on the ballot under multiple party lines if more than one party endorses them. Proponents say this system can help minor parties gain influence by letting them support a major-party candidate while still signaling their distinct priorities to voters.
United Wisconsin’s complaint draws from Wisconsin’s “pluralist” history to argue the benefits of fusion voting, saying, “[fusion voting’s] coalition-building defined Wisconsin’s early political culture.” A statement corroborated by panelists Allie Morris and Andy Craig, who discussed the history of fusion voting in Wisconsin.
United Wisconsin said it eventually plans to organize a political party, with the support of many panelists including former Wisconsin Court of Appeals Judge Dave Deininger, but only if the Dane County Circuit Court recognizes fusion voting.
Deininger, a former Republican, said he wants fusion voting to be restored so he could vote for moderate candidates and supported it because it’s “wrong and arguably unconstitutional for the state of Wisconsin to tell me who I can and cannot associate [with] in the political arena.”
Small parties under fusion
While proponents of fusion voting argued the practice could help smaller parties, others disagreed. Green Party member Rita Maniotis asked panelists how small parties should trust that fusion voting is not just a way to “steal” ballot lines.
Green Party co-chair of New York Peter LaVenia said pro-fusion voting laws will “create conditions for backroom deals,” citing the Working Families Party’s cross-endorsement of Andrew Cuomo in 2010, 2014 and 2018 New York elections, sometimes after the party claimed they would nominate an independent candidate.
LaVenia said he saw what he called “disaggregated fusion” — where a candidate shows up multiple times on one ballot which often creates confusion — in the most recent New York City mayoral election.
During the mayoral race, voters were confused about how mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s name appeared twice on the ballot, opposed to Andrew Cuomo who appeared once — because Mandani was supported by both the Democratic Party and the Working Families Party while Cuomo only ran as an Independent.
LaVenia said he was hesitant to support fusion, but was most likely to support “aggregated fusion” where each candidate is given one ballot line with endorsing parties listed, rather than given one line per party endorsement.
Panelist Dan Cantor, co-founder of the Working Families Party of New York, pushed back against this criticism, arguing the goal of fusion parties is being “at the table” during legislation-making.
The same argument appears in United Wisconsin's complaint where they explain in more detail, “Fusion allows a nascent political party to influence an immediate election while building its institutional capacity in hopes of having greater influence in the future.”
He addressed LaVenia saying, “It’s legitimate for the Green Party not to fuse, but they’re not at the table.” The Green Party’s aims fundamentally differ from fusion parties. Their goal is to become a major third party with distinct policies and nominate their own candidates, whereas fusion parties aim to co-nominate candidates that align with specific policy angles alongside majority party nominations.
Cantor said the Green Party wants to “change the atmosphere, inject new ideas into politics. That’s legit. It’s different.”
Former state Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz, a Republican from rural Richland Center, said fusion voting will give constituents a “chance to sit at the table [and] to be a part of the discussions that matter to them.”
