Kansas & Fusion Voting: The Expansion and Shrinkage of Democratic Participation & Responsive Representation in the Sunflower State

Abstract

Despite majority support from Americans for more political choice, our electoral system discourages organization of new or minor parties and increases governmental dysfunction and gridlock. The “single-member district, winner-take-all” nature of the United States’ electoral system renders candidates outside the framework of our two major parties electorally non-viable and relegates their supporters to "wasting" their votes on candidates with no chance of winning, or "spoiling" the election by inadvertently ensuring victory for their least favored candidate. Until about a century ago, however, almost all U.S. states avoided these problems by permitting “fusion voting”: the ability of more than one party to nominate the same candidate for office on their ballot line, with votes cast for that candidate on any nominating party's line counted in the candidate's total vis-a-vis rivals. This mechanism allowed minor parties to engage constructively in politics, fostering fluid political association and elevating new and pressing issues to the political mainstream. This paper explores fusion voting’s historical significance in the state of Kansas, where Populists consistently employed fusion and enjoyed electoral success unrivaled by almost any other minor party in U.S. history. It then examines the political context of fusion’s prohibition in the state, arguing that the motivation of Kansas Republicans who abolished the mechanism in 1901 was to quash competition and maintain one-party control of state government. Finally, we explore the long-term systemic effects of the ban, namely the degradation of the degradation of Kansas government's responsiveness to its citizens and stable pursuit of the public good, and the near-total absence of meaningful competitive party activity in the past century of Kansas politics.