In most states, third parties are stuck in either the “wasted vote” or “spoiler” box. Third parties, in most states, are a fool’s errand.

But instead of accepting this as a fait accompli, why don't we discuss instant runoff voting (IRV) and proportional representation (PR)?

I think fusion is fine, but it requires that the minor parties in question be willing to withhold their endorsement when it's not merited. Somewhat surprisingly to me, at the 2006 Massachusetts Libertarian state convention, a huge majority was against a ballot question to allow fusion in MA. Apparently they distrusted fusion because of the LP-NY's endorsement of the thoroughly unlibertarian Bill Weld. Well, you can certainly abuse fusion much like you can abuse any other tool. But asking the government to take away an option so that we Libertarians don't hurt ourselves with it doesn't really square with libertarian philosophy in my view.

As the example of the Liberal Party in NY shows this type of third party can become a means to extort favors from candidates. That the Working Families Party hasn't played this game (yet) may just be an indication that it hasn't gotten enough traction.

I like fusion voting and do vote for WFP when it's on the ballot, but I think the present arrangement is not transparent enough. It may be better than straight two party voting, but it still seems like an imperfect solution to the problem of rendering minority viewpoints irrelevant as the current winner-take-all system does.

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

Good questions. The simple answer is fusion voting both increases voter turnout and pushes the major party candidates on the issues.

The secret ballot means we don't know exactly who votes third party (that might not be true if you're using Diebold machines). But the groups most likely to vote on a third party line in a fusion system are young voters, working class voters, and new citizens - all groups that have below average turnout.

For example, a 2005 poll of Ohio voters found strong support for a third party among voters under age 44, those with a high school diploma or less education, and those who describe themselves as worse off economically. A 2001 Peter Hart poll in upstate New York found that these same groups were most likely to vote on a third party line.

So when the major parties aim for the segments of the electorate with the highest turnout - seniors, college graduates and homeowners - other voters get left out. And polls show a real hunger among those left-out voters for more choices on the ballot.

By appealing to voters based on issues rather than personalities, third parties in a fusion system provide left-out voters the added options they're looking for while also letting them vote for a candidate with a chance of winning.

Fusion is a party-focused reform, while IRV is more candidate-focused. Proportional representation operates at a different scale than either, since it involves switching from single members districts to multi-member districts.

How's that for a start?

The Working Families Party pushed through an increase in New York's minimum wage in 2004 and put paid family leave on the agenda this year. That's traction.

As soon as Mike Arcuri was elected in my district, he joined the Blue Dog caucus. It isn't obvious that was an advance over Sherwood Boehlert, who once toyed with running in the Democratic as well as Republican primary.

I think fusion is a great idea but I am not so inclined to think that a Mike Arcuri represents working families. I will give you that his opponent was a troglodyte.

Best, Terry

The original strategy of the national New Party (which was co-founded by Dan Cantor, and from which New York's Working Families Party is descended) was to get the Supreme Court to recognize a First Amendment right to cross-endorsement. This would have forced states to allow fusion. In 1997, they got their case--Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party--but they lost 6-3 (with Souter, Ginsberg and Stevens dissenting). This was an unsurprising result; in general the Court has been abysmal on ballot access and third party issues. And, along with a few other bumps, it led to the demise of the New Party as a national effort.

While the WFP has, to a certain extent, proven the value of fusion, absent the deus ex machina of the SCOTUS's recognizing a right to cross-endorsement, I think this is not the right ballot reform for progressives to focus on. Far more meaningful would be the achievement of Instant Runoff Voting, which would eliminate the spoiler problem entirely. With IRV, voters could vote for a minor party candidate as a first preference, while putting a major party candidate as a second preference. The number of second-preference votes for the Democrat from, say, first-preference Green voters, would have a similar effect to the fused WFP voters in Dan Cantor's scenario. But unlike under fusion, third parties under IRV would be free to run their own candidates without threatening to elect the greater evil among the two major parties.

Given that IRV and fusion would take similar efforts to institute in any given state, why should we focus on fusion when we can work toward the much more flexible tool of IRV?

I have one other concern about the WFP today. The New Party used to boldly proclaim that it wouldn't be a rubberstamp for the Democrats, that it would pick and choose progressive candidates to endorse, and that fusion was a tactic, not its reason for being. Critics of the New Party, especially among other third parties, suggested that it was essentially in business to be a white hat for the Democrats

As far as I can tell, WFP's behavior has validated a lot of the criticism of the New Party. It seems to endorse nearly every Democrat in general elections. And, so far as I can tell, virtually never runs its own, non-fused candidates against centrist or conservative Dems.

(Full disclosure: I was very involved in the New Party in the early and mid 1990s. After the collapse of the New Party, I joined the Greens.)

Voters are smarter than they're given credit for. Why make this a theoretical discussion? In the places where fusion is used, people aren't confused by it. In the places where IRV is used, people aren't confused by it.

Your point that Democratic and Republican candidates will try to fudge the difference between themselves and their opponents on different issues is right on. The reason fusion voting isn't confusing is because third parties will take stronger stands on the issues than the major parties. Since minor parties can endorse major party candidates in a fusion system, they can take those strong stands to motivate their base while at the same time endorsing candidates who can win.

That's why fusion isn't confusing, and how fusion lets people vote for both candidates and issues.

To me, Mike Arcuri is an example of how fusion holds candidates accountable. He joined the Blue Dogs, but he still votes the right way on issues like raising the minimum wage and bringing the troops home from Iraq because he can see that's how the voters in his district want him to vote and he can see that voters in his district will base their votes on those issues.

Arcuri is better than Boehlert because he's part of the Democratic majority. But I'm not so naive as to think the Dems in Congress will never disappoint us. That's why we need ways to both elect Dems and keep them accountable.

Fusion and IRV solve different problems. Fusion helps parties organize around issues by letting third parties (and voters) take a strong stand on the issues and by letting supporters vote for candidates who can win. The third party votes that go to a winning candidate under a fusion system are concrete proof of voter support for the issue. IRV, by contrast, helps candidates who aren't major party candidates address the spoiler problem, though it doesn't help them get elected.

To bring it back to your question, with fusion voting you're campaigning for and electing a winning candidate. With IRV you might elect a winning candidate as your second choice, but you're not campaigning for them.

That's why fusion is a better way of building progressive power - governing means dealing with winning candidates that want you to campaign for them, and fusion lets you do that.

In Massachusetts, both the Libertarian and Green-Rainbow Parties spent lots of time and energy in 2006 badmouthing a proposed fusion voting ballot question. (The question got approved by the state Attorney General, but did not garner the signatures necessary to get on the ballot.)

Frankly, I would be more sympathetic to the Libertarian/Green-Rainbow opposition to fusion voting if either party showed any inclination whatsoever to take elections seriously--contesting far fewer than 5% of the state legislative seats means either that you have more of a vanity press than a political party, or that the current system of getting good candidates needs an overhaul. (That neither party was willing to consider the advantage of having [Libertarian/Green-Rainbow]- approved major party candidates in elections where they did not want to be spoilers makes me think that the vanity press is a very good metaphor.)

What's the advantage of campaigning for a candidate whom you hope to influence but with whom you don't agree?

IRV makes it clear that the candidate in question understands that s/he wouldn't have won without your (transfered) vote, but allows you to spend your time campaigning for candidates with whom you actually agree.

The only "problem" fusion solves that IRV doesn't is how the Democratic Party can convince folks who've given up on it to work for their candidates.

And the very fact that the WFP is endorsing one candidate over the other tells voters there is a difference. I'm another New Yorker who always votes the WFP line when it's available; like IRV, it's a very effective way to show elected officials just where along the political spectrum their votes are actually coming from.

I'm with Hoppy. Sure, it's nice that "fusion" parties, a charming new name for old stuff here in NY, aren't spoilers. The down side is that they're not parties either. They're just special interest groups, in the sense of a very specific agenda, rather than an attempt to reshape the political landscape. That helps explain why they tend to form only when a group already has political clout, in this case unions, in NY's more notorious case a crook named Raymond Harding. 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

To me, a political party is a group of people who share an issue agenda. Your distinction sounds like an abstract semantic argument.

If you're interested in politics as a way to change government policies then it's a boon. If you're interested in reshaping the political landscape through the glorious revolution then less so.

Clean up your charts - you make it look like you were more than the "margin of victory" in the Higgins - Naples race. Glancing at the chart and not reading the numbers (not that anyone would ever do that, of course) would lead one to believe that you were responsible for close to a third of the democratic votes in that election.

Fusion is also useful for helping minor party members get elected. One-third of all state legislative races in the U.S. have either no Republican nominee, or no Democratic nominee. In other words, one-third of the time, one of the major party nominations is not even being used. Under those conditions, when fusion is legal, a minor party candidate-member can also snag a major party nomination. This helped the Libertarian Party elect 4 state legislators in New Hampshire in 1992, and 2 in 1994. Also one in Vermont in 1998.

While fusion may work as illustrated above, its ultimate power lies in the potential to withhold votes, whether through individual abstentions, or collectively putting forth an alternative candidacy.

If the Democratic Party were to put forth a presidential candidate who would actively promise to illegalize abortion and send more troops to Iraq, I would vote 3rd party. The fact that such a candidacy would generate such a response is one reason the Democrats don't put forward such a candidate.

Otherwise, there is no reason for Working Families to exist as a PARTY, rather than as any other pressure group such as NARAL.

Looking at other races and polling data, it's safe to say that if the WFP hadn't brought together those voters under our line to vote for Higgins then that segment of the vote would have fractured and Naples would have won.

I have no data to back me up, whereas you do. But I find that to be counter-intuitive.