Electoral fusion is the practice whereby two political parties endorse a single candidate. It’s illegal in 42 states.
But I’m not sure what it means to say it’s illegal. Does this mean one candidate can’t receive funds from two political parties? Or that one candidate can not have the verbal support of more than one political party? Or that the leaders of one party may not take actions designed to get the candidate of another party elected? Or something else? Or all of these? Or what?
Not to change it into a great debate, but were free speech issues brought up in the courts when this was made illegal? If so, how did those cases go? (Obviously we know who won them, if such cases exist. But what was the legal basis for the decision?)
I don’t think there is anything that can prevent someone from endorsing or saying “as the Libertarian party chairman, I urge all Libertarians to vote for Neptunian Slug in the General election”. However, if the Libertarians have ballot access, they can’t list me on the ballot under their line if I am already the Republican nominee.
It is not uncommon here in PA to see Republicans and Democrats running under both party banners, although its because they actually won both party primaries (one through write-in votes). That’s not illegal, although, I don’t think it necessarily means you endorsed by one party or the other. In addition, in PA judicial and school board candidates can cross-file and run in both party primaries. We had a case here where the two parties agreed to split the judicial offices. The Republicans would support two Democrats and the Democrats would support three Republicans for the local courts. That in effect means that the candidates were “endorsed” by both parties. But in order to get on the ballot line, they still had to run in a party primary. And it is possible that they could lose.
In places like NY where you see smaller parties giving them an endorsement, its more about the party chairman giving a ballot line to a candidate.
No, in New York, it’s usually because the candidate wants to have an extra line so that people who, say, wouldn’t ever vote for a Democrat could vote for the candidate from the Working Families Party.
They’re also used to gain political clout. In our area, the Conservative Party is a wing of the police and firemen’s unions. To get their endorsement, you need to do what the union wants.
It’s probably not actually illegal in any state. However, what states usually do is count the votes by party line. Thus if Jones gets a million votes as a Democrat and a million as a Populist, and Smith gets 1.5 million as a Republican, Smith wins. This is a major disincentive to add a second line.
The relevant law would merely stipulate that there be no pooling of votes and the election officials would count on that basis.
No, it’s definitely illegal in Illinois. It’s all about ballot access. To get nominated you have to run in a primary, and to get on the ballot in a primary you have to file a declaration of candidacy with one and only one political party. If you file more than one, both get thrown out.
(You can also get on the general election ballot as an independent, or a minor party candidate, by petition, but the same principle applies–if you’re already on the ballot elsewhere, your petition gets rejected.)