I have no problem with fusion voting--it seems a no-brainer to me, although I think of it pretty much as a harmless baby step. But by the same token, it's frustrating to read a long argument for the obvious. So, what are the arguments *against* it? What were the justifications for prohibiting it, that could be raised against this effort?
The first is against the policy itself, which is that it makes ballots longer and clutters them by listing the same candidates multiple times, making voting more complicated or confusing.
The second is it's kinda pointless window-dressing that costs the electoral reform movement time, money, political capital, and credibility once people realize it's been overhyped. Roughly the same thing happened with IRV-RCV, which has little-to-no impact on elections, but has suffocated more substantial electoral reforms endorsed by social choice theorists. In Seattle, it was used to kill off approval voting; in Eugene, FairVote pushed to kill off STAR voting because it might compete with RCV. And in Canada, it killed the proportional representation movement: Trudeau originally supported it but switched to opposing PR, saying he preferred RCV instead (which would make candidates "moderate" their positions whereas PR would empower extremists, according to him).
I have no problem with fusion voting--it seems a no-brainer to me, although I think of it pretty much as a harmless baby step. But by the same token, it's frustrating to read a long argument for the obvious. So, what are the arguments *against* it? What were the justifications for prohibiting it, that could be raised against this effort?
I think there's two arguments against it.
The first is against the policy itself, which is that it makes ballots longer and clutters them by listing the same candidates multiple times, making voting more complicated or confusing.
The second is it's kinda pointless window-dressing that costs the electoral reform movement time, money, political capital, and credibility once people realize it's been overhyped. Roughly the same thing happened with IRV-RCV, which has little-to-no impact on elections, but has suffocated more substantial electoral reforms endorsed by social choice theorists. In Seattle, it was used to kill off approval voting; in Eugene, FairVote pushed to kill off STAR voting because it might compete with RCV. And in Canada, it killed the proportional representation movement: Trudeau originally supported it but switched to opposing PR, saying he preferred RCV instead (which would make candidates "moderate" their positions whereas PR would empower extremists, according to him).
Fusion voting is a very BAD idea! Trust me! New York State has Fusion voting. And, it DOESN'T work!