Under fusion, or cross-endorsement, a candidate's name can appear two or more times on the ballot as the nominee for two or more parties.

This is already possible in the State of New York. As a result, New York has more small political parties, but fewer candidates on the ballot.

When fusion advocates began their signature drive last summer, the Associated Press headline was, "Ballot question could boost clout of third parties." But the story didn’t bear out the headline.

The Green-Rainbow Party's Jill Stein said, "Fusion voting encourages back-room deals between parties. It's not the parties that need more power, it's the people who need a bigger voice."

The Libertarian Party's Carla Howell was just as critical. "These laws starve and suffocate new and innovative political proposals."

The contrast between the headline and the story is emblematic of the issue of fusion voting.

In fact, the Massachusetts fusion petition specifies that cross-endorsement decisions would be made only by the State Committees of the political parties. This centralized endorsement process is the same as that of the New York-based Working Families Party (WFP), which happens to be the group that initiated and funds the fusion drive in this State.

The core endorsers of fusion here are also the core backers of the WFP in New York—locals of the Communications Workers, SEIU and Teamsters, and the low-income community organizer group ACORN.

These groups also contribute money to WFP. So WFP is unusually well financed for a minor party.

Indeed, most of WFP’s funds—millions of dollars— come from Democrat politicians and their backers, including Senator Hillary Clinton and billionaire financier George Soros. They do not give this money out of love for political diversity.

In effect, The New York WFP functions as an arm of the Democratic Party. WFP leaders don’t hide that their purpose is to draw disaffected working class people back into the Democratic Party.

There are people who would never vote for, say, Hillary Clinton as a Democrat but might vote for her on the WFP line.

Fusion proponents say that Clinton's political behavior should be influenced by knowing that five percent of her votes came on the Working Families (WFP) line. Fusion opponents say there is no sign that this has actually happened.

The Massachusetts fusion proposal has both Democratic and Republican sponsors in the State Legislature. They are hoping, as the ballot sponsors put it, that this can "put an end to the spoiler problem once and for all."

For voters, that translates as putting an end to the possibility of real choice.

You can imagine a political ad for a candidate running on four party lines. "You can vote for anyone you like," it might say, "as long as it’s Jeb Bush."

Instant Runoff Voting—a real solution

In Poll after poll, the American public has expressed a preference for more than two choices at the ballot box. Most recently, a national poll conducted for the Wall Street Journal found that three-quarters of the electorate believed there was a need for at least "a third party."

The Green-Rainbow Party advocates a very diffrent reform that would resolve the spoiler issue without restricting choice. This is called Instant Runoff Voting (IRV).

With IRV, you could vote for more than one candidate, ranking your choices by number. If your first choice did not get enough votes to win election, your vote would then be transferred to your number two choice.

Massachusetts could as easily shift to IRV voting as to fusion voting. It would not require a constitutional amendment.

Variations of the IRV system have been used successfully all over the world. IRV is used in Cambridge municipal elections, where it is known as PR (Proportional Representation). A similar system was recently introduced in San Francisco.

Democrats like to blame Ralph Nader for their loss in 2000. Republicans may well blame Ross Perot for their loss in 1992. But neither major party has shown any interest in IRV. Apparently they don't care that much if a "spoiler" lets the other guy win.

Some Democrats—those who control the Democrat Party—are far more interested in demonizing Nader than in replacing Bush.