Ranked choice voting can further the goals of fusion voting
Executive summary
- Fusion voting lets multiple parties nominate the same candidate. Voters can select which party line they want to use when voting for that candidate in the general election.
- Fusion voting can help minor parties build support and influence, and advocates say it could lead to more moderate candidates who have cross-party appeal. Yet it has some flaws on its own.
- When fusion voting is used in single-choice elections, minor parties often feel pressured to nominate a viable Democrat or Republican rather than advance their own candidate. That’s because fusion voting doesn’t solve vote-splitting, and can lead to candidates winning without broad support.
- Ranked choice voting (RCV) offers a sort of “Fusion 2.0”: it can work well in addition to fusion voting, or instead of it. RCV can further the goals of fusion by allowing minor parties on the ballot while also promoting majority winners and giving minor parties the freedom to nominate their preferred candidate.
What is fusion voting?
Fusion voting allows multiple parties to nominate the same candidate. Fusion voting is currently used in New York State, Connecticut, and a few other jurisdictions. Minor parties have the choice of nominating their own candidate, or nominating the same candidate as a different party, sometimes known as a “cross-nomination.”
For example, on the ballot shown below, both the Democratic Party and the Working Families Party nominated Kathy Hochul for governor of New York, while the Republican and Conservative parties nominated Lee Zeldin. Voters choose a single line on which to vote for their preferred candidate, based on which party they prefer.
Sample ballot from Ithaca, NY, 2022
What impact does fusion voting have?
Supporters of fusion voting claim it has several benefits over traditional elections:
- Fusion voting gives minor parties an alternative to acting as “spoilers” by letting them nominate the same candidates as major parties.
- Fusion voting creates opportunities for minor parties to cross thresholds for ballot access and debate access in future elections. For example, in New York’s 2022 gubernatorial election, Kathy Hochul earned 48.5% of the vote on the Democratic Party line and 4.5% on the Working Families Party line. That 4.5% was enough for the Working Families Party to maintain its status and continue organizing as a party in New York.
- Fusion voting creates opportunities for minor parties to gain influence over the political agenda by extracting policy concessions from a Democratic or Republican candidate in exchange for a cross-nomination, or perhaps petition for policy concessions after the election based on the strength of support for the winner from the minor party’s voters. In the Kathy Hochul example above, parties and campaigns know that nearly 10% of Hochul’s winning coalition came from Working Families Party voters, which could influence how Hochul governs.
Despite the purported benefits of fusion voting, it is a partial solution at best. Below are three areas where fusion voting falls short of its goals.
First, fusion voting doesn’t solve “vote-splitting” or help identify a majority winner. If minor parties nominate their own candidates or if independent candidates run, these candidates can still play “spoiler” and deliver the election to a candidate without majority support, therefore compromising their own policy goals.
Second (and relatedly), fusion voting creates strong incentives for minor parties to cross-nominate the Democrat or Republican rather than advancing their own candidate. If a minor party wants to nominate their own candidate, they will be labeled as a “spoiler” and we’re right back where we started. It is difficult for a party to build an identity over the long term when their only option is to cross-nominate the Democrat or the Republican.
Third, in practice, fusion voting appears to provide just enough leverage for minor parties to gain some influence over major parties, but not enough influence to stand on their own and elect their own candidates in significant numbers. New York’s Working Families Party is a prime example of a minor party maintaining some influence, but seldom able to elect its own candidates.
How RCV improves on fusion voting
Ranked choice voting delivers many of the same benefits as fusion voting, and also solves issues that fusion voting doesn’t address. It offers a sort of “Fusion 2.0”: giving minor parties the flexibility to nominate either a major-party candidate, or their own preferred candidate.
Under fusion voting in single-choice elections, minor parties can only appear on the ballot without being labeled as a “spoiler” if they nominate a Democrat or a Republican. RCV, by contrast, gives minor parties true freedom to nominate their own candidates, and also ensures winners have broad support. Minor parties even have the power to recommend to their voters which major-party candidate to rank as their second choice, giving them the same kind of influence as they have with fusion voting.
States considering fusion voting should consider RCV in addition to, or instead of, it. The reforms can work well together, and RCV furthers the goals of fusion voting. Implementing fusion voting without a complementary system to promote majority winners and prevent vote-splitting could expend all the energy of a winning reform campaign while only realizing half of the benefits. RCV is a complementary policy that can ensure fusion’s benefits are fully realized.
This is the third post in FairVote’s ongoing #PutRCVOnIt series, where we examine how RCV works in conjunction with, and improves, other election reforms. We acknowledge that there are many ideas for improving American democracy, but also that no reform is a silver bullet. We explain why RCV is a key piece of the puzzle, and how it fits in with other pieces.
