Gavin, My point that "prevents" wasn't that it's not impossible to run your own candidates. What happens is that, without IRV or preference voting (and even in that case), minor parties could be infiltrated by major party operatives who would work to nominate major party candidates instead of their own. Without IRV, there's a _huge_ incentive for this to happen. It's clear, we need IRV FIRST before fusion voting is implemented, or, I have a realistic fear that it would by implication destroy my party and my right to freely associated with like-minded people. Also, if you read the legislation that's been going around, as amended in committee in the last sesssion, you'll never be able to get major party status through a major party candidate nomination -- another structural anti-minor-party bias, despite the fact that the candidate has to accept that nomination in any case. There's no mention in the proposal that the candidate could choose their "primary" party that could get increased status -- no, it simply falls onto the existing major party. Furthermore, major parties could be able to use this system to dual-nominate and to dual-qualify for continued ballot access, and oddly enough, it happens quite frequently in unopposed elections that, for example, the Republican primary nominates a running Democrat through write-ins. I'm afraid the proponents of fusion voting have not been asking those who have been working on minor parties for years how fusion voting can be gamed (and has been gamed in the past). I like the idea in general, but it needs to be done either with or after IRV to be truly effective, but NOT before IRV.