From Polarization to Pluralism: Harnessing Parties and Fusion Voting for a Healthier Democracy

Politics is a collective activity, and the best mechanism for people to organize and work together to build the kind of society they prefer has always been the political party. But toxic partisanship and polarization between the two major parties in the United States—resulting from our system of single-member legislative districts and winner-take-all elections—has given us an unresponsive government and a public that is dissatisfied and disaffected. In 2023, Gallup reported a record 41 percent of Americans identify as political independents, and a majority of Americans consistently say they would like to see more parties.

Amid high polarization and extremism, it’s no surprise that some reformers view political parties as unnecessarily divisive and favor reforms that would undermine their role. However, anti-party reforms, such as the non-partisan top-two primary, have a poor record of increasing moderation or encouraging participation or trust. That should come as no surprise, because parties are the essential institutions of modern mass democracy. They give voters meaningful choices and help political actors and ordinary citizens organize for collective action necessary to actually govern.

Many experts believe we need more parties and stronger parties. But how do we get there? What do we know already about the impacts of parties, different party systems, and pro-party reforms? What do we need to better understand?

To work through some of these questions, New America; Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law; the Center for Ballot Freedom; Protect Democracy; and Lyceum Labs, convened 45 academics and practitioners for two days at Stanford University to explore the value of political parties in democracy, the challenges associated with governing in a two-party system, and possible strategies for reform, focusing on the revival and re-legalization of fusion voting. The goals for the event were three-fold: (1) To expand scholarship and conversation about parties, party systems, and the merits of a multiparty system; (2) To build a community of academics and activists across the ideological spectrum; and (3) To create a new research and demonstration agenda for party-centric reforms, in particular, fusion voting.

Parties are inevitable and perform critical functions in democratic society. Parties educate voters, recruit candidates, set a long-term agenda, and are accountable to their supporters, among other benefits. However, a rigid two-party system can hinder these benefits, as we’ve seen in the United States. The poor performance of America’s two-party system in recent years has led to an increase in long-standing anti-party sentiment among Americans, which has frustrated and blocked efforts to make parties and the party system overall work better for more people. Instead of acknowledging parties as potential forces for meaningful engagement, representation, and effective policymaking, many reformers have steered into the anti-party movement, embracing changes like open primaries and blanket primaries.

Since the Progressive Era, many reformers have channeled the public’s general suspicion of parties, highlighting legitimate cases of corruption in their quest to transfer power from party elites to the people. That era gave us direct primaries and nonpartisan municipal elections, for example. While these reforms were often well-intentioned, they failed to eliminate parties and ultimately reinforced the duopoly, as major parties co-opted the anti-corruption narrative to pass restrictive ballot access rules for minor parties, including bans on fusion voting in the majority of states.

Today, with our political system in a state of hyper-partisan polarization, many reformers are once again pursuing ideas meant to weaken parties. The More Parties, Better Parties conference at Stanford University marked an early attempt to advance knowledge and awareness of an alternative pro-party reform approach: to try something our reform forebears did not, with the advantage of a century of lessons learned from multiparty systems within our own country and overseas.

Over two days, conference participants—a cross-partisan, cross-sector, and cross-disciplinary group of political scientists, legal scholars, funders, and practitioners—gave and heard presentations and engaged in robust discussions on the merits of the research and arguments put forth on parties, multiparty systems, and the legal and political barriers to ballot freedom for minor parties in the United States. We also brainstormed a future research agenda and strategized opportunities for multiparty, pro-party reform.

Evidence presented at the conference suggested that healthy party systems typically have more than two effective parties and that multiparty systems consistently produce better outcomes than two-party systems across representation, governance, and social cohesion, among other measures. Pro-party reforms such as fusion voting and proportional representation enable new parties to emerge and compete meaningfully in the democratic process, which can reduce hyper-partisan polarization and extremism. However, in order to achieve widespread adoption in the U.S., reformers will need to confront deep anti-party sentiment, as well as a legal and political landscape steeped in the two-party tradition.

Below is a breakdown of some of these themes and takeaways.

Parties are necessary and inevitable, so we should try to improve them.

Parties play an indispensable role in democratic governance, including subsidizing participation, educating voters, providing accountability and ballot cues, delivering on policy promises, and channeling conflicting groups into places where they can prioritize and compromise. Parties have historically been instrumental in building and stabilizing representation. Parties are also inevitable, as the Framers discovered after initially trying to prevent their emergence, as well as durable, to the dismay of Progressive Era reformers who sought to undermine (and in some cases eliminate) parties’ power.

But just because parties are necessary and inevitable doesn’t guarantee they do a good job. When parties are weak and/or lack the incentives to perform many of their core functions, institutional legitimacy, governance, and the social fabric all suffer. Strong parties channel distinct interests into meaningful political representation and enable long-term planning while constraining personalism, among other benefits.

Scholars and policy reformers often concentrate on parties' electoral and legislative dimensions, neglecting their social functions of membership and solidarity. Some participants argued that parties should be examined as intermediaries between society and government, noting that while other organizations represent interests, parties uniquely mediate the relationship between civil society groups or communities formed by ideology or identity and the government. However, today's parties struggle to fulfill these social roles effectively.

Participants stressed that U.S. parties are now highly professional in winning elections, but they no longer act as effective gatekeepers or membership organizations that address people’s concerns and social demands. Local and state party organizations have mostly been hollowed out and have little presence outside of the election cycle. The previous era’s coalition- and consensus-building virtues can become a vice in today’s political climate of extreme, negative partisanship and razor-thin majorities. The result has been a loss of accountability, policy responsiveness, and civic trust. Trust in parties and party membership have likewise diminished. The increasing suspicion of parties reflects a broader erosion of faith in liberal democracy, with concerns about corruption, short-term goals, and unresponsiveness to public needs.

The immediate crisis in the U.S. party system is not a reason to reject or displace parties, which would only further alienate people from politics. Instead, experts suggest that we should create the conditions for them to work better. Participants set out a reform vision that included decentralization and pluralization of the party system. By revitalizing local and state party organizations and opening up ballot access for minor parties, they argued, more parties could take root in more places—particularly places that are currently dominated by one party or pulled apart by the two-party dynamic. This, in turn, will foster more competition, encourage more cross-cutting coalitions to form, give disaffected voters more opportunities to find a political home, and bring new issues onto the agenda.

Precisely what constitutes a “strong” and “healthy” party is a subject of ongoing debate, yet it’s clear that electoral success and fundraising are not the only metrics that matter. Participants expressed a need to expand our assessment of parties to include effective representation and meaningful linkages with citizens. A healthier party system may require a renewed pluralism and localism within and across parties, for example.

Of course, any principled evaluation of parties should also account for adherence to basic democratic values, such as fairness, equality, and responsiveness. Preserving these values in a federal system is a constant balancing act. Calls for a more devolved and diverse party system responsive to regional preferences must be weighed against what we know about existing disparities in the United States. Well-documented racial, educational, health, and representational disparities, between blue cities in red states compared to blue states serve as cautionary examples. These concerns become more pronounced in the absence of robust local journalism, as some participants noted.

The two-party system is unstable and prone to extremism. Fortunately, it’s not an immutable law.

The instability of the American party system is the result of reinforcing feedback loops of binary hyperpartisan polarization—the “two-party doom loop.” This level of polarization has flattened all politics into a single all-encompassing fight, threatening the legitimacy of electoral and governing institutions. In this climate, we cannot rely on incremental or candidate-focused interventions (e.g., “If we can just defeat this one extremist candidate, all will be well”). Extremism has become a system-level property that demands a system-level solution: to reform and reorient the party system as a whole.

Political parties organize identities and provide a sense of belonging. It’s hard to overcome our us vs. them tribal wiring, but not impossible. The two-party system is not an immutable law of nature, but one that follows from our single-member district plurality electoral rules and is reinforced by rules and norms that restrict and undermine minor parties’ role in the democratic process. Therefore, the system can be transformed through changes in the rules that facilitate more flexible, multidimensional politics, such as the reinstatement of fusion balloting.

Fusion allows dissatisfied partisans to vote for their typical major party candidate but on new minor party ballot lines. The advantage of this ballot system from a depolarizing perspective is that it enables partisans to adjust their beliefs incrementally, in a manner that will not clash with ingrained cognitive biases. In other words, fusion can provide “off-ramps” for partisans who may be stuck in a binary mindset. Notably, for some conference participants, fusion’s off-ramps lead directly to their desired destination: a less rigid and ideologically extreme two-party system. For others, proportional representation is the endpoint, with fusion as an immediate, but ultimately instrumental, stop along the route.

Multiparty democracies are healthier democracies.

What might multiparty democracy in America look like? While America is exceptional in many ways, in a moment of extremism and toxic polarization, we would be remiss not to look beyond our borders for inspiration, lessons learned, and best practices.

There’s a substantial body of research on the performance of multiparty systems in advanced democracies. As one participant found, proportional electoral systems and coalition governments incentivize more inter-party cooperation, which promotes a "kinder, gentler" politics. Warm affective evaluations linger long after the coalition itself ends, which can help mitigate partisan and political hostility in the long term.

To be sure, multiparty systems are not perfect. Fringe, extremist parties do have more opportunities to compete meaningfully (without being spoilers) and secure representation. Yet, these parties rarely gain true governing power. The experience in Europe shows that far-right parties may feel excluded from government, leading to grievance, but those who attain governing power through coalition tend to moderate.

These findings and our discussions support the adoption of a more proportional electoral system in the United States as a means to strengthen and sustain our democracy. However, outside of comparativist circles, many Americans lack awareness of the depolarizing dynamics and other benefits associated with advanced multiparty systems.

Fusion voting may be the key to unlocking multiparty democracy in America.

Fusion voting was once legal and practiced across the United States. In the nineteenth century, fusion politics played a significant role in sustaining a more complex party system and increasing the competitiveness of the electoral system. Fusion nominations allowed third-party voting to have a meaningful impact on public policy, particularly in areas such as economic development and political rights. Historically, fusion enabled small-d democratic reforms, such as defending the voting rights of Black Americans in North Carolina and passing progressive legislation in Kansas.

Early in the twentieth century, a majority of states banned fusion by law, often to prevent the alliances that made such changes possible. Today, only New York and Connecticut use full fusion or disaggregated fusion, in which a candidate can be listed on the ballot multiple times on different party lines. The experience of these states can help us better understand how fusion has played out and its limitations and can point us toward more research questions.

For example, data from congressional races from 1976-2022 shows that the use of fusion tickets has varied over time and by party: Republican candidates in New York were more likely to run on fusion tickets in the 1980s and 1990s, while Democratic candidates were more likely to do so starting in 2004 and up until 2020. Indeed, research finds votes from smaller parties have historically provided a greater boost to Republican candidates than to Democratic candidates, even as this difference has narrowed in recent years. The electoral boost from fusion, however, has only flipped an outcome in 23 congressional races from 1976 to 2022, usually in favor of a Republican candidate. In terms of turnout, when Democratic candidates run on fusion tickets, turnout rates are higher, but these effects disappear once controlling for incumbency status.

Many participants called for the revival of fusion politics in the present-day two-party system, suggesting that it could counter extremism, promote coalition-building, and facilitate action on urgent public initiatives. Historical and more contemporary data indicate that fusion also has the potential to increase civic participation through grassroots campaigning and organizing.

Yet the legal landscape for reviving fusion remains a challenge. In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Timmons v. Twin City Area New Party that Minnesota’s fusion voting ban did not unduly burden the associational rights of citizens. By protecting the two-party system, Chief Justice Rehnquist stated in his opinion, the decision served the larger “state interest in ballot integrity and political stability.”

In the decades since, the two parties have pulled apart and once-fringe ideas and movements are increasingly gaining a foothold in the political mainstream, causing legal and political scholars to reconsider the Court’s decision—and their basic assumptions about the stability of the two-party system. Some participants argued that Timmons and anti-fusion laws failed to recognize minor political parties’ contributions to democracy. The suppression of minor parties has allowed the two-party system to dominate unchecked and fuel toxic hyper-partisan polarization, which, in turn, has undermined faith in the electoral process and governance overall.

These arguments are already being field tested, as some participants explained. Litigation is currently underway in New Jersey to lift the state’s century-old fusion ban. The Moderate Party of New Jersey contends that the ban “violates numerous provisions of the state’s constitution, including those guaranteeing rights to free speech, assembly, and equal protection.” (See also “New Jersey Voters on Political Extremism, Political Parties, and Reforming the State’s Electoral System,” November 2022).

We need more data to better understand the impacts of party-centered reforms and resolve tensions.

Reforms like fusion voting and proportional representation can allow for new parties to emerge, but the trajectory and quality of new parties in these circumstances in the U.S. needs to be better understood. For example, hyper-partisan polarization and extremism are two of the biggest concerns people have about American democracy. Fusion voting can be a centripetal reform that brings different parties together, but some skeptics worry it can also be a centrifugal reform that promotes further fragmentation and polarization by allowing minor parties on the far left and right to pull the major parties away from the center. Available evidence suggests the moderating influence of new centrist parties and their swing voters would likely outweigh any such effects, but further research into these and related questions is worthwhile. Learning from party-building and party-performance in existing fusion states, as well as those who might re-legalize it in the near future, will be particularly instructive in understanding how to promote and nurture healthy party systems.

A growing share of U.S. electoral reform advocates support the long-term goal of a multiparty democracy with proportional representation. Some view fusion voting as a promising first step in that direction, while some skeptics of a full multiparty system nonetheless embrace fusion as a way to soften the rigid nature of today’s two-party system. While fusion voting has been a feature of U.S. elections for nearly two centuries, research into the practice has been surprisingly scarce. Further research and scholarship is clearly warranted and could provide crucial information as those in the reform community make difficult decisions about the allocation of time, resources, and energy.

• What are examples of countries that have transitioned to multiparty systems and how has it worked for citizens? How did new parties organize in those circumstances?
• Are moderate parties realistic?
• What do center-right and pro-democracy Republicans want from better representation in a multiparty system?
• How can the erosion of the social fabric caused by America's two-party system be addressed in a multiparty system?
• How can parties be more socially embedded in communities and engage in community organizing to convert activism into effective party politics?
• What are the institutional explanations for strong and effective parties, and what incentives need to be in place for parties to be strong and represent the interests of citizens?
• How does fusion affect the balance of power between mainstream parties and smaller parties in the political landscape?
• What are the implications of fusion voting as a mechanism for bringing policy issues back into the conversation?
• How might existing and future campaign finance rules interact with with re-legalized fusion voting?
• What are the comparative effects of alternative electoral systems, such as ranked-choice voting and fusion voting, on the political landscape?