The Wisconsin Green Party is opposing efforts to restore fusion voting in the state, filing an amicus brief arguing that the change would give major parties greater control over third party ballot lines and complicate efforts to adopt ranked-choice voting.
In a brief dated July 16, state Greens asked the Dane County Circuit Court to grant the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s motion for summary judgment in United Wisconsin v. Wisconsin Elections Commission. The filing was joined by party co-chairs Michael White and Curtis Bolton, along with Green Party candidates Pete Karas, Robert Longwell-Grice, David Schupbach, and Matthew Arndt.
Among the party’s slate, Karas is running for secretary of state this cycle, while Arndt is seeking Wisconsin’s 6th Congressional District. Schupbach and Longwell-Grice are running for the 5th and 10th Assembly districts, respectively.
United Wisconsin and several voters filed the lawsuit in April 2025, arguing that Wisconsin’s ban on fusion voting violates state constitutional guarantees of political association and equal protection. Under the system they seek, multiple parties could nominate the same candidate on separate ballot lines, with votes from each combined when determining the winner. Wisconsin permitted fusion voting from statehood until lawmakers prohibited it in 1897.
In its brief, the Wisconsin Green Party acknowledged that it is the type of organization the lawsuit is intended to help but said it “respectfully declines the hand that Plaintiffs extend,” arguing that fusion could instead become another tool for the major parties to exploit. It warned that the system could encourage the creation of “sham parties” and allow Democrats or Republicans to seek additional ballot lines at the expense of independent third parties.
It also objects to the specific form of fusion sought by United Wisconsin, under which a candidate appears separately for every party that nominated them. It contrasts that system, which it calls “disaggregated fusion,” with an aggregated model in which a candidate is listed once alongside each nominating party. The state Greens worry that the former would be especially difficult to combine with ranked-choice voting, which they would rather see implemented.
“This brief defends no duopoly; instead, it’s about the Green Party’s ability to exist as something more than an appendage of the Democratic Party,” the filing states. “While the Green Party believes that Plaintiffs are well meaning, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
The party further said that, if fusion voting is restored, it should be done through the Wisconsin Legislature rather than the court system. The Greens argue that although a favorable ruling would not amend the Wisconsin Constitution, it could interpret the document as protecting fusion voting and restrict lawmakers’ ability to later replace it through the ordinary legislative process.
The Wisconsin Green Party’s position on fusion voting also notably places it at odds with the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Working Families Party, two other third parties involved in the case. The organizations filed a joint brief supporting United Wisconsin in June, arguing that fusion is “a matter of life or death” and that Wisconsin’s ban has made viable third party politics nearly impossible by preventing such organizations from cross-nominating candidates with a realistic chance of winning.
Karas, who shared the brief with Independent Political Report, has been particularly vocal about what he regards as a conflict between fusion and ranked-choice voting. In a campaign statement earlier this month announcing his involvement, Karas said both reforms are intended to solve the same problem faced by third parties under the current system but do so in opposite ways, with fusion asking third parties “to fold into the two-party race” while ranked-choice asks them “to compete independently of it.”
Karas said he understands the appeal of fusion voting, pointing to the Working Families Party’s use of the system in New York to extract policy commitments from Democratic candidates. However, he presents himself as a firm advocate for ranked-choice voting, and his primary objection is also largely to having a court establish fusion as a constitutional requirement rather than allowing lawmakers to determine how the state’s elections should operate.
Beyond ranked-choice voting, Karas said he also supports proportional representation, public financing through democracy vouchers, independent redistricting, and lower ballot-access thresholds for third parties, all of which he called “reforms that change who can run and who can win” and said should instead be enacted through the Legislature. “You do not get them handed to you by a lawsuit, and you do not get them taken away that way either,” he added in the statement.
Ranked-choice voting proposals have already been introduced in Wisconsin, and Karas argued that they could be limited or otherwise negatively affected depending on how the court rules on fusion. His concerns are also echoed in the state Green Party’s brief, which similarly says combining disaggregated fusion with ranked ballots would raise unresolved questions about duplicate candidate entries, the design of the ballot, and how votes would be tabulated using existing software.
“In short, if this case wins and allows fusion voting, RCV will not work due to Wisconsin’s current laws,” Karas later told IPR in an email. “In addition, we feel the Dems will have an incentive to fill our Green ballot lines as then their votes will be aggregated for their candidate.”
As of this article, the case remains pending in Dane County Circuit Court, where both sides have asked the court to resolve it through summary judgment. No ruling date has been publicly announced.
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