The University of Wisconsin Law School is hosting a conference Friday on fusion voting, which allows major and minor parties to nominate the same candidate on a ballot. A lawsuit pending in Dane County Circuit Court seeks to overturn Wisconsin’s fusion voting ban, which has been in effect since 1897.

Project Democracy, which is sponsoring “Parties, Power and Possibility: Revisiting Fusion Voting in Wisconsin,” defines it as “the right of political parties to nominate whoever they choose in partisan elections, including the possibility of one candidate being nominated by multiple parties.” The process was once common, according to the group, and two states — New York and Connecticut — allow some version of it.

The advantage of fusion voting, says the group, is that “Multiple parties can

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