> A lot of the reason I remain living in New York is because of fusion voting. Fusion voting is actually one of the exact mechanisms that the two dominant part

> A lot of the reason I remain living in New York is because of fusion voting. Fusion voting is actually one of the exact mechanisms that the two dominant parties use to ensure that third-parties remain completely non-viable. As you point out, fusion voting means that third parties have a stronger incentive to endorse one of the Democratic or Republican candidates instead of running their own, because it ensures their right to ballot access. > primarily because if they don't get enough votes in the elections they cease to exist (i.e., why Working Families endorsed Cuomo instead of Teachout last gubernatorial election). It's a little more complicated than that. Cuomo promised the Working Families Party that, if they endorsed him, he'd push for a particular piece of policy that they'd wanted. After they endorsed him, he then started the "Women's Equality Party"[0], which also endorsed Cuomo, in a direct attempt to split the vote from the Working Families Party. His goal was to drive the Working Families Party vote under 50,000[1], which would have denied them ballot access in future elections, so that he wouldn't have to worry about their influence or endorsement in the future. Fusion voting is an embarassment to democracy. It's "hilarious" when you show up to the ballot box, and the same candidate is running unopposed on three party lines: as a Democrat, a Republican, and an Independence party candidate[2]. [0] led by himself and his family, run mostly by men. [1] Don't quote me on the number, but I think that's the threshold [2] For those who aren't from New York: yes, this is sadly pretty common. Though more often than that, only one party even bothers to front a candidate in the race in the first place, so the general election is a series of uncontested elections, with each candidate running on only one party.