Votes & ballots · Presidential elections
Fusion voting
One candidate running on multiple party lines; all lines count for the same candidate.
Fusion voting lets more than one party nominate the same candidate, who then appears on the ballot on several party lines. New York is the best-known fusion state: the Democratic nominee typically also runs on the Working Families line and the Republican nominee on the Conservative line, and a candidate's total is the sum across all of their lines.
Fusion complicates party attribution: whether a fused ballot is credited to 'Democratic' or to the minor party depends on how the reporting source assigns lines. In this dataset, New York's county-level Democratic/Republican attribution of fused ballots differs from the state-level file's in older elections (through 2016). New York's total votes reconcile between the two levels; its county-grain party split in those years should be read with that caveat.
Also known as: electoral fusion, cross-endorsement.
See fusion voting in the data
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Fusion voting — FAQ
What is fusion voting in election results data?+
One candidate running on multiple party lines; all lines count for the same candidate. Fusion voting lets more than one party nominate the same candidate, who then appears on the ballot on several party lines. New York is the best-known fusion state: the Democratic nominee typically also runs on the Working Families line and the Republican nominee on the Conservative line, and a candidate's total is the sum across all of their lines.
Why does fusion voting matter?+
Fusion complicates party attribution: whether a fused ballot is credited to 'Democratic' or to the minor party depends on how the reporting source assigns lines. In this dataset, New York's county-level Democratic/Republican attribution of fused ballots differs from the state-level file's in older elections (through 2016). New York's total votes reconcile between the two levels; its county-grain party split in those years should be read with that caveat.
Where does this election results data come from?+
County-level presidential returns come from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab (MEDSL). pumsdata is an independent product and is not affiliated with MEDSL or with any campaign, party or election authority.