Lawsuit seeks to declare Wisconsin fusion voting ban unconstitutional
A legal brief filed late last week seeks to have a Dane County judge declare that an 1897 law banning the practice of fusion voting is unconstitutional because it restricts the rights to a “free government,” equal protection and freedom of speech through a law that was passed to explicitly create a partisan electoral advantage.
The motion was filed on Friday in a lawsuit brought last year by United Wisconsin, a nascent centrist political party hoping to offer voters an alternative to the “duopoly” of the Democratic and Republican parties. The group is represented by the voting rights focused firm Law Forward.
Fusion voting is a practice through which multiple political parties can nominate the same candidate to the ticket. Under the system, a minor party such as United could choose to nominate its own candidate, but more often the party would endorse one of the major party candidates. Voters would be able to cast their votes for the same preferred candidate under either party line.
At a conference on fusion voting hosted at UW-Madison last year, political scientists and proponents of the system said that in theory it can give minor parties more influence. A third party candidate under the current system is unlikely to win, but a minor party’s policy preferences are harder to ignore if the party has just enough sway to swing an election result in either direction.
https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2026/04/13/lawsuit-seeks-to-declare-wisconsin-fusion-voting-ban-unconstitutional/